Price Per Stem

Rather than using flowers as a metaphor, this is explicitly thinking about the flower marketplace. I’m fascinated by how the flower market functions as a microcosm of collectivization and global trade. This industry is worth billions, and it raises questions around the impact of agriculture, climate change and labour rights. It's a really dirty business with super low margins, and people get paid next to nothing. I wanted to foreground what these flowers are worth. From the point of view of the market, a flower is at its full potential in bud, then once it is dead and decayed it is essentially worthless. I spent a lot of time thinking about the full life cycle of the flower and how to manifest it in the dataset and moving image works. I find that if you really look closely at a flower, you can see so much happening. Here are these beautiful transient objects that are exported from places like Colombia or Alaska, and travel through huge flower markets in the Netherlands before they reach all these different shops where you can pick them up for £3. There are so many variables that go into that final price. There are the predictable bumps around holidays like Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day, or wedding season. Then there are some people who want locally grown flowers, and in Britain that comes at a premium. Depending on the weather that year, there might be a glut or a shortage which could drive the price up or down. One of the things that drew me to peonies is that despite their popularity, they are quite hard to grow. They have to spend a certain amount of time in the ground when it’s below freezing in order for them to sprout, but they then need warmth to bloom. With climate change, a lot of the areas they were traditionally cultivated aren’t getting cold enough winters, whereas Alaska has become a huge exporter because it is now warm enough.