very living organism, including plants, aspires to leave behind descendants. Both flowers and mammals reproduce through sexual activity. As an avid film watcher, I can’t forget the naïve yet potent semiotic analogy of showing intercourse and mating – employing the canoodling contact of flowers in olden films – as censor boards decided the morality instead of the screenplay writers and film directors. The spread of pollen, which helps to fertilise plants, can nonetheless mean misery for seasonal allergy sufferers.

A pop-up event called PoliNations, an arts festival, was advertised as part of the Birmingham 2022 Festival. This was a cultural event planned to coincide with the city’s hosting of the Commonwealth Games via colourful illustrative print and digital advertisements. I learnt that this lovely initiative was about bringing together several ideas for celebrating diversity. It promised to revisit the UK’s complicated history of migration and variety while respecting everyone’s individuality, ancestry and the present. It also highlighted the importance of access to green spaces and a healthy planet. In the UK, most city gardens have more than 80 percent foreign-born plants.The phenomenon occurred with colonisation with schema for planting transcontinental exotic trees to glam up 20th-Century Britain.

Out of curiosity, I was among the first to visit this impressive setup in the middle of Victoria Square on September 2. There was an epic display of colours in a magnificent city centre garden. With the help of thousands of plants and five enormous, eleven-metre-tall architectural trees – with one presented as a mother tree in the middle - the whole square was converted into an urban paradise that used the vibrancy of plants as a metaphor to highlight the city’s migration tales and multicultural life force. Thousands of plants and flowers were co-planted by the city’s residents, Trigger Collective – the host organisation, creative teams and collaborators. The infographics were overwhelmingly full of fantastic daily activities on the site over the next seventeen days, including workshops, sensory experiences, garden tours and talks on subjects like decolonising the garden and sustainability.

According to Angie Bual, the creative director of the art group, transforming a space overnight was an invitation to think differently about where we can reclaim our green space and that it could be in the middle of our city if we chose it to be so. This approach reminded me of another brilliant project, Forests, conceived and executed by a British architect and designer, Asif Khan, as part of the London Design Festival 2016. Asif Khan had created three temporary see-through pavilions thick with plants placed on the footpaths and parks in East London to give the harried pedestrians a space to relax, work and socialise. MINI, a car manufacturing company in Oxford, had supported the critical project.

At PoliNations, this man-made magical wonderland uncovered the origin stories of the plants Brits know so well – daisies, pansies, apple trees, willow, lavender, amaranth, fern, tulip and roses – most plants regularly seen in public and private gardens across the UK. The names of the flowers and plants were engraved in the petal-shaped wooden extensions like leaves, bearing numbers to see, listen and learn more at the dedicated information points in Chamberlain Square. They all told the story of journeys, movement, dispersal and new roots – journeying plants. Rose has featured in literature and mythology worldwide, representing: love, war, purity and friendship, among others. Islamic cultures and roses have incredibly close links. Since the 16th Century, roses have been a favourite in Persian-style gardens across the Mughal empire. Roses continue to be a source of national pride in Iran. They are honoured during rose festivals and are recognised as national flower in the United States, the United Kingdom and eleven other nations. The same goes for apples – a common sight in British orchards and gardens today. The apple tree originated in Kazakhstan and travelled to the UK via the Silk Road, like many other goods.

In the UK, city gardens include more than 80 percent foreign-born plants – a phenomenon that occurred with colonisation with the schema of planting transcontinental exotic trees to glam up 20th-Century Britain.

Pansy is a plant for identification and protest. It has historically been a disparaging slur for homosexual people. During the 20th Century, some freethinking movements reclaimed the term as a celebration of sexuality and variety. The well-known, flamboyant contemporary pansy was initially produced in the middle of the 19th Century, mainly from the wild pansy, also known as heartsease, an impish trespasser in European grain fields. A willow tree is a symbol for pragmatism; the adjective willowyin English may refer to something very slim and flexible. Due to its drooping branches, the willow has long been associated with sadness, yet it also represents resilience, healing and power. Willow trees are recognised for their connection to crafts and weaving and are one of the few trees that can be bent without breaking. They also have a long history of healing. Willow bark, which includes a substance utilised in aspirin, has been used for generations for its medicinal benefits. Amaranth is resilient and tenacious. It was used by the Aztecs in ceremonies involving food made from the plant. The Spanish invaders later made the plant illegal and it became a representation of resistance. It endured thesuppression and is today being cultivated across the world.

Lavender is associated with well-being. It has long been used to soothe, relax and reduce stress. Popular during the Victorian era and into the 20th Century, the aroma of lavender may awaken vivid memories for those from an older generation. The plant and the oil it produces have a variety of uses in herbal medicine, cooking and perfume. Its curative properties have been employed since ancient Egypt.

All this knowledge made much sense to me in the presence of an interplay of words in a very British-fashioned bio-diverse city. In the evening, when my wife and children joined in after school, we enjoyed the music. There was an incredible light show and yoga/meditation session, before leaving to come back again.

As a visual communication designer, I noticed how information, wayfinding and the execution of the entire space were designed; kudos to the creative brains behind it. An expert team from the Trigger Collective had included multidisciplinary designers, artists, architects and spatial design researchers specialising in sustainable building, materials and landscape. I am sure set and costume designers, art directors and horticulturalists were also involved. Light and sound designers had done an excellent job; all the performances were well-synched to create a thrilling multimedia ride.

I visited PoliNations the following weekend and found it relaxing, especially the sensory garden. The fact that people responded differently in such environments proved how vitally significant such settings are throughout time. The event served as a reminder that safe havens are necessary for building communities for the future. I also liked the silent meditation andthe conversational passages.The background music was terrific. In contrast to the typical city annuals, which yield nothing to insects, the profusion of flowers was overpowering. Thearoma filled the entire space. It was soothing and one could almost forget that one was in the middle of a metropolis. A far cry from the flashy, carnival-like atmosphere, it made the ideal background against which to consider the state of the country. Every time I uploadedsome visuals, I felt motivated to continue taking images for Instagram and thought it might be fun to invite more of my friends. There were many bees, beautiful sculptural trees and a tranquil atmosphere.

It was mentioned that on the last day that local community organisations and the general public would be urged to take a plant home. This guarantees that the landscaping materials used for the project won’t be thrown away or put in a landfill. They will instead be dispersed around the city. It’s unfortunate that the garden only existed for a short while. Ideally, the PoliNations Garden’s popularity will spur the development of such initiatives. It would be even better if some cities committed to establishing more long-term green areas.

The Trigger Collective made an alternative virtual portal for those who couldn’t travel to attend this festival in person. A PoliNations app lets everyone express themselves by building a mystical plant inspired by their feelings, beliefs and wishes, including a virtual flower emerging from each special seed. This may be ‘planted’ using augmented reality at their house, place of business or other location and added to a digital super garden. The overall experience has been a potent hybrid of horticulture, arts, science and architecture, both somatically and temporally.

The writer is an art/ design critic. He heads the Department of Visual Communication Design at Mariam Dawood School of Visual Arts and Design, Beaconhouse National University, Lahore