The Pansy Project

In 2005, artist and ‘accidental activist’ Paul Harfleet planted a pansy on a street in Manchester, photographed it, and posted the picture online with the title ‘I think it’s time we went gay bashing again’.
According to 2013’s Gay British Crime Survey, one in six Lesbian, Gay, or Bisexual people have experienced a homophobic hate crime or incident between 2010 and 2013. Two thirds of those who experienced such an incident did not report it. The UK may have marriage equality, but many people find the streets are sites of unasked-for confrontation. It is in this arena that The Pansy Project operates.
Paul’s response to a specific incident of homophobic abuse he experienced – and using the words hurled at him as a title – was the first entry in what has become The Pansy Project. Since then the project has grown in scale, encompassing cities across the world and often included in arts and LGBT festivals. With his brother, he even won a Gold Medal at Chelsea Flower Show in 2010 for a garden related to the project.
The use of photography, language, and social media is shrewd and effective. We see no obvious suffering as these are, after all, pictures of pansies. Coupling images of fragile flowers with abusive language forces the viewer to acknowledge a rupture; places we think we know well are changed radically through their use and as sites of interaction. Walk through a town centre at different times of day or night and you’ll quickly see how its character is altered when used by different communities. The Pansy Project foregrounds how hostile some places can be, depending on who you are.
One thing that’s easy to miss, but embedded in the work, is Paul’s return to sites of abuse in order to plant and photograph the flower. This re-inscription of his presence trumps the abuse without letting it fade from memory. Appropriating abuse into a strategy of resistance is not new. Queer was initially a derogatory term — so was Impressionism, for that matter — and this work continues that grand tradition.
Pansy, of course, is another one of those words and Paul’s symbolic use of the flower is important. He writes:
Not only does the word refer to an effeminate or gay man: The name of the flower originates from the French verb; penser (to think), as the bowing head of the flower was seen to visually echo a person in deep thought.
The Pansy Project is political and defiant, gaining its strength and resonance from the dignity of its resistance. The symbolism of the pansy and in the way documentation is used, (which to my mind is similar to some of the Conceptual Art strategies of the late-1960s), forces us to reconsider our public spaces and what takes place there.
It’s now 2014 and the project is still going strong. Which is, I suppose, a shame.
In addition the website, the Pansy Project is also on Facebook and Twitter.