BUTTERFLIES IN CHISWICK
Butterflies
DESCEND ON CHISWICK
New community artwork installed A flight of gorgeous, brightly coloured butterflies is making Chiswick High Road its home this autumn. Reclaiming the police station for a community-run project, the massing of butterflies and flowers is an art installation organised by not-for-profit environmental group Abundance London. The police have moved out and the site is up for redevelopment. A stunning image of the London skyline, created by panoramic 360 photographer Will Pearson, will transform the ground floor into a vision of the city. Abundance distributed templates in 3mm plywood of both butterflies and flowers – the butterflies 17cm x 12cm and the flowers 15cm in diameter – to schools and community groups and organised pop-up painting sessions in various places throughout September. “All sorts of people have joined in” said Karen Liebreich, Director of f @outandaboutmagazines
Abundance London. “It’s been lovely”. Then came the mammoth task of varnishing them all – 3,000 in total – before the big reveal, the installation. The Police station wall runs alongside Old Market Place, where outdoor markets have been introduced over the past 12 months – a flower market on the first Sunday of every month, antiques and vintage on the second Sunday and a cheese market on the third. Karen is one of the founderdirectors of the Chiswick Flower Market, which is run by volunteers and aims to help revitalise the High Rd and make it an attractive place for people to spend time. This is the latest in a series of community artwork installations organised by Abundance London; the Chiswick Timeline mural under the railway bridge on Turnham Green Terrace tells the history of Chiswick in maps.
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The ‘W4th plinth’ on the railway embankment has become a space for large art works to be shown. This latest project will last until the building is torn down for redevelopment. A number of schools painted butterflies and flowers – Strand on the Green, Grove Park, Ravenscourt Park, Chiswick and Bedford Park, Belmont and Cavendish primary schools, Chiswick School and Latymer. Chiswick Brownies rolled up their sleeves to paint, as did Age Concern Chiswick and St Mary’s Convent. Also involved were the Hammersmith Community Gardens Association and Speak Out in Hounslow, which supports adults with learning difficulties. The project was supported with Welcome Back funding from the European Regional Development Fund and the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government.
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