Hampton Court Flower Show
In 2008 Metal were invited by the parks team at Southend Borough Council to work with them on the design and concept of their annual submission to Hampton Court Flower Show. Well known for traditional Essex gardens - for the last 13 years they had been awarded medals for every entry, including 5 Gold’s & 6 Silver’s.
We widened the partnership to include Essex & Suffolk Water and Arts Council England to create a beautiful, contemporary space that offered ideas and solutions to an environmentally sound garden that included low-water flowers, grasses and vegetables, as well as demonstrating a water recycling and cleaning reed bed filtration system that was distributed throughout the garden via a sculptural water feature.
The climate change theme linked the garden directly to Metal at Chalkwell Hall.
Manchester-based artist’s collective, UHC, were commissioned to create a centrepiece table that drew together the themes of the garden, the nature of the partnership, and the Metal’s ongoing programme of cooking and eating together. The stunning, hand-made, oak dining table with hand painted motif is now installed at Chalkwell Hall and regularly hosts lively conversations amongst artists and others.
Metal also commissioned six artists (Heather Ackroyd & Dan Harvey, Yasmin Alibhai-Brow, Kuljit Bhamra, Joanna Hartle, Cornelius Macarthy and Noel Wallace) to develop or recommend recipes that used the vegetables planted in the garden. These recipes can be downloaded by clicking here.
