LONDON — Burberry is marking the Platinum Jubilee with a host of projects that highlight the nation’s green spaces.
The company, an official sponsor of the Jubilee celebrations, which are taking place here from June 2 to 5, has teamed with Historic Royal Palaces to support Superbloom, an immersive floral display that encircles the Tower of London.
The brand is contributing two original, immersive outdoor installations, including a large floating Burberry-branded meadow that will be moored directly across from the Tower of London, on the Thames.
Burberry is also contributing an art wall made in collaboration with the digital artist Jon Emmony.
The floating meadow is a zero-waste installation that houses more than 5,000 plants, many of them found along the U.K.’s riverbanks. It’s meant to show the role that natural grasslands and marshes play in storing carbon, and to demonstrate how flowers feed pollinators and riverside wildlife.
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To build the garden, Burberry used 1.4 tons of recycled plastic collected from rivers around the U.K., which is equivalent to 58,000 plastic bottles or 3.3 million plastic drinking straws.
Once the display is over, the elements will be reused, repurposed or recycled: the greens will be replanted by Burberry volunteers and live on in local community projects. Floating meadow maps have also been created from seeded paper and vegetable inks, allowing visitors to plant and create their own meadow from home.
Another of Burberry’s displays has a fantasy element: The brand has worked with Emmony to create a “utopian vision” of a future world “rich in biodiversity and shepherded by nature.”
The Burberry Art Wall is situated at the entrance of Superbloom at the Tower of London and wants to encourage “a new generation of creatives to explore the future of our world,” in an imaginative way.
Superbloom is located in the moat of the Tower of London, where 20 million seeds have been planted. It has been designed to attract pollinators and wildlife and is the first step in a permanent transformation of the moat into a natural landscape.
“For the Superbloom artwork, I took inspiration from the detail of Elizabethan tapestries and textile design, and visualized nature unfolding across these wide scenes,” said Emmony, who was formerly the digital art director of Nick Knight’s ShowStudio and his current projects sit at the cross-section of fashion, tech and youth culture.
“Throughout my work, I utilize 3D and CGI techniques to render a version of reality. In this case, I wanted to take the beauty of British wildlife, flora and fauna, and imagine it coming to life and thriving in a world where technology and nature coexist.”
Burberry has also teamed with primary school children to create artwork and messages for the Queen marking her many decades on the throne. It worked with children at Armley Park Primary School in Leeds, near to Burberry’s Yorkshire factories.
The childrens’ creations have been enlarged and displayed on more than 80 bus stops throughout central London where the Platinum Jubilee Pageant will take place on Sunday, June 5.
Armley Park Primary School is also a beneficiary of Burberry’s partnership with Marcus Rashford MBE, the National Literacy Trust, and Macmillan Children’s Books to help young people develop their literacy skills.
Burberry has also created a Jubilee commemorative scarf with patterns reflecting exploration and the outdoors. It is hand-illustrated with motifs inspired by ancient British woodlands and their flora and fauna, including yew trees, bluebells, butterflies and squirrels.
The scarf also features birds representing the four British countries: a robin for England; capercaillie for Scotland; sparrowhawk for Northern Ireland and golden eagle for Wales.
The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee silk square scarf will also adorn Burberry store flags and windows in the City of London, the company said.