Talking Plants is an interactive, living sculpture made in collaboration with year 4 students, commissioned by Southwark Park Galleries, London. The piece resulted from a series of workshops led by Artist Associate Kristina Pulejkova with Year 4 students at John Donne Primary School in 2022. It used simple electronics, plants, sound, and storytelling to create an interactive piece of work that gave voice to plants through sensor-based technology.
Talking Plants was shown at Southwark Park galleries in May 2023.
The students learnt about the plant world and its intricate connections to us and the immediate environment. By teaching the students how to create interactive artworks using simple sensor-based electronics in a STEAM-based approach, the artist inspired and empowered the children to seek out further connections between art and science, technology, and the environment.
The final output is an innovative, lightweight, interactive sculpture formed by a set of 12 plants, decorated with motifs taken from the collages created during the workshops. As people hover over the plants with their hands, they ‘wake up’ the plants and hear their voices and stories imagined by the students.