Installed on the previous site of Olives Paper Mill as part of the Irwell Sculpture Trail, Emergency Meadow is a wild flower meadow grown on a giant sized Victorian industrial handcart reminiscent of those used to wheel industrial materials into Northern mills.
Emergency Meadow references England’s pre industrial rural heritage and the farms and grazing pastures which once populated rural England before the industrial revolution changed the Northern landscape and the global economy forever.
Emergency Meadow is sown solely with white flowers, their colour referencing the thriving paper industry which once stood close by at Olives Paper Mill. Emergency Meadow will evolve throughout the seasons from snowdrops, through to white meadow flowers such as Corn Chamomile, Ox Eye Daisy, Hedge Bedstraw, and Cow Parsley, to seed pods and harvest.
Grateful thanks to commissioner Tony Trehy and Bury Council, James Alderson at JPA ArtServices, architect Melissa Hunt, Structural Engineer, Toby Savage and Diana Hamilton at The Hamilton Project.