Behind the Billboard: The Story of INSTAR’s Curbarium

Curbarium was created in collaboration with local young people and families through a series of community printing workshops. The resulting artwork is a vivid celebration of Coalville’s natural resilience and quiet beauty.

Rooted in shared stories and memories, the artwork explores how wild plants - from buttercups to daisies - become woven into childhood experiences. These small rituals, such as making daisy chains or testing for a love of butter with a flower under the chin, reveal the deep and lasting connections formed with nature during early years.

The energy, creativity, and enthusiasm expressed by participants during the workshops are central to the spirit of Curbarium. Many stories reflected themes of fun, family, play, and traditional knowledge passed down through generations. One conversation explored how children may feel a closer bond with wildflowers simply because they are physically nearer to them - a closeness that fades with age.

Curbarium reflects the idea that wild plants help shape identity, memory, and cultural connection, particularly in youth. These relationships form a thread that often unravels in adulthood, but can be remembered and rekindled through shared storytelling and artistic expression.

Installed on a street-facing billboard - a medium traditionally used for commercial messaging - the artwork reclaims public space to spotlight the importance of urban nature. Through vibrant street art and layered prints, Curbarium draws attention to the interconnected lives of humans, plants, and wildlife, highlighting the historical, cultural, and ecological value of street plant life.

Each panel in the billboard offers a fragment of this narrative, interwoven with prints made during workshops in Coalville:

The colours: The colours chosen in the billboard art work are a reflection of the same bespoke tones that we created for the engagement. A made to measure palette of soft tones paralleling the urban environment and the dynamic street life that lines its pavements.

The individual frames: Each frame is interwoven with imagery of prints that were created during the engagement in Coalville. From right to left.

The map: A map is a familiar symbol of navigation, the map in this case is of a close up of the capillaries in a leaf, the tributaries mirroring the urban street map of Coalville, showing us the direction to a greener urban existence.

Stonecrop: A common yet often overlooked perennial herb. Originally a plant of mountainous regions it is now quite at home on walls across our urban environments and the town. It was chosen as a symbol of resilience and adaptability.

Small wonders: The ecologist Edward O Wilson once famously said that its “the little things that run the world”. Here he was emphasising that while humans may perceive themselves as dominant, the intricate workings of ecosystems are heavily reliant on the biodiversity and ecological functions performed by insects, and a vital part of any insect’s life is plant life.

Song thrush feeding chicks: The image of a bird feeding its chicks a caterpillar is one of timeless familiarity, an emotive representation of the nurturing of a new generation. Yet how often do we consider that the plant constitutes all the components of a nest? The plant provides the insects that feed the thrush, plants and their insects provide the materials for building the egg, the bone, flesh and feather, they are the coin in the jukebox that plays that beautiful lilting early summer tree top song.

Radical / Bindweed: The word ‘radical’ is derived from the Latin word ‘radix’, meaning root in English. Radical in the artwork also refers to the nature of street plants, radical meaning something that fundamentally alters the nature of something. Plants are, by nature, fundamental to our existence, their resilience and adaptability is something that we can all gain inspiration from. Bind weed is a classic example of this.

Outsider / Buttercup: In the artwork, the word ‘outsider’ refers to the benefits of being someone who embraces being outside, and how in our modern lives this can be seen as being alternative or unusual. Outsider is a word centred in pride, acknowledging the beauty and joy of an existence of cohabitation with other species. The Buttercup under the chin is an example of a conversation during engagement. A handed down through generations method of detecting if you like butter, the underside of your chin glowing yellow when the flower is placed beneath it.

Street life: A well-known phrase, often summoning an earworm from the days of disco and the classic Randy Crawford song, the choice of font style and colour reflecting this era, although the phrase in the artwork is referencing the more than human word of plants and the life that they support in our urban environment.

Daisy chain: Another reference to a generational hand me down practice of threading stem of flowers together, traditionally created for celebratory occasions. Symbolic of playfulness and connectivity.

Dissected Valerian seeds: Seeds are the package with all the information that drives all life on earth, even a seemingly uncomplicated dissection diagram disguises profound life supporting power. Valerian is a success story among street plants, its foaming sprays of effervescent pink blossoms splashed across walls and curb sides up and down the country and vibrantly visible in Coalville.

Home: Is where the heart is. Representative of cohabitation across the neighbourhood and the Coalville community

The colour scheme used across the billboard was developed during community workshops and reflects the tones of Coalville’s built environment - soft, grounded hues that echo the everyday beauty of the streetscape while enhancing the presence of its wild flora.

Curbarium offers a gentle reminder of the relationships humans share with wild plants - relationships built through childhood wonder, everyday encounters, and generational memory. Through this artwork, nature is repositioned not as background, but as an active, joyful participant in urban life.