e stunning yellow owers of Kōwhai Grove bring sunshine to Grey St Arcade. Photo: John Borren.

Sunshine hangs above you as they sway gently in the wind and gleam in the light – forever in ower.

Repurposing 14,784 single-use plastic bottles, artist Bobbie Gray has created Kōwhai Grove – an eye-catching installation that brightens Downtown Tauranga’s Grey St Arcade.

Reimagine

With Tauranga as her hometown, Bobbie says: “Kōwhai Grove was an opportunity to create a welcoming and engaging space for local communities and visitors”. “It was a chance to reimagine a public space, Grey Street arcade, a place that ebbs and ows, where people come and go, meet, and gather as locals go about their day-to-day.”

From the more than 14,000 bottles, Bobbie has handcrafted 2464 owers and leaves that are tted with programmable LED lights.

“A single kōwhai ower is made up of ve di erent bottles to create the di erent ower parts; the sepal, outer petal, inner petal, stamen, carpel and another bottle for the leaf, which were all hand-cut and melted before being spray painted.”

Community e ort e work has been a collaborative community e ort too, says Bobbie. “Each delicate ower has been handcrafted by myself, as well as members of the Bay of Plenty community using plastic water bottles that were collected locally, diverting thousands of single-use plastics from land ll.

“Kōwhai Grove serves as a stark reminder of the impact our waste has on the planet and its inhabitants, and hopes to inspire viewers to rethink their own consumption.”

She says this project was a year-long process. “Making the work itself was quite physically challenging,” says Bobbie. But the community’s response to the artwork has topped the e ort. “I’ve seen hundreds of positive comments, which really makes all the hard work worthwhile. It is really special that my rst large commission like this was for my hometown.”