UK First Workshop of Research on Humans Response to Flowers

It's been a huge month. A trip to the UK, a lot of miles, and I'm finally sitting down to tell you about it.  

The highlight was my participation at the world's First Workshop on Humans' Response to Flowers at Surrey University. This brought together evolutionary psychologists, biochemists, dementia researchers, master florists, food scientists and me!  For the first time we were all in one room learning about what makes a rose smell the way it does, what our favorite colour of flower is, whether our love of flowers is hardwired into our DNA, and whether flowers in clinical spaces genuinely shift what patients feel and how they heal and cope.

That last question is what we're interested in, and my co-researcher Aaron Fry and I were there presenting as the first reseacher-practitioners to bring a design-led lens to floral photography in clinical environments. Being in that room, and hearing my work taken seriously alongside the findings of molecular biologists and evolutionary psychologists was something else. I learned so much that will go directly into how I think about and make my work.

We had an amazing few days with visits to a sustainable flower farm, sampling a honey bar, seeing some of pretty Guildford and meeting some extraordinary people from around the globe who are equally fascinated about the power of flowers.  We also learnt more about a dementia feasibility research study using my four of my artworks in a London care home - more details to come as they unfold.

Click here to enjoy some of my photos from the past few weeks:

View Photos of Workshop in UK