In June 2024, I made and gave away 50 mini bouquets of flowers to celebrate and remember campaigners who've made our world a better place. To celebrate World Humanist Day (and thanks to funding from Humanist Society Scotland), each bouquet was labelled with details of someone who's fought for the rights and freedoms we enjoy today, taking in a wide range of activists featuring campaigns for peace, anti-slavery, disability inclusion, LGBT+ rights, environmentalism, civil rights, feminism and so on.
Image: Posies in situ and awaiting new homes at Category is Books, Glasgow.
The posies were distrbuted via the following brilliant venues:
Edinburgh: Tribe Porty (19 Windsor Place, Portobello, Edinburgh EH15 2AJ). Thursday 20th and Friday 21st June, 8.30am - 5.30pm (whilst stocks last)
Glasgow: Category Is Books (34 Allison Street Glasgow G42 8NN). Thursday 20th - Sunday 23rd June, 11am - 5pm (whilst stocks last)
Depending on which posy you pick up, you might find some of the following symbolic flowers included:
Lavender, and purple carnations - celebrating the campaigning work of the Lavender Menaces.
Chrysanthemums, as a symbol of peace, anti-war and disarmament, in honour of this iconic moment at an anti-Vietnam war protest
Rosemary - for remembrance
Peonies, chosen by Juliet Sargeant for her anti-slavery garden at Chelsea Flower Show in 2016 (for which she became the first Black winner of a CFS gold award). Also recorded by Brooklyn Botanic Garden as one of the first flowers sold by Black flower vendors in Depression-era New York, as part of a project to revisit Black horticultural heritage.
Roses - Inspired by B Parker's writing about Trans Day of Remembrance: “Roses can be a symbol of friendship, love, and acknowledgement of achievement, but are often associated with mourning the loss of someone close to us. Reframing the giving of roses in relation to trans lives immediately lets people know that we want to be cherished and honoured while we walk the earth".
Homegrown flowers and foliage - celebrating sustainability, seasonality and environmental awareness.
Image: Close up of some of the posies at Tribe Porty, showing the tags - each featuring a campaigner.
Feedback on the project has been amazing. The posies were really popular, and were snapped up so quickly and enthusiastically. People loved taking time to read the tags, and to choose a posy carefully based on which campaigner’s story resonated with them. One person selected the posy dedicated to a teacher, for example, because she was also a teacher, and another person told me how inspired she was to read about the anti-slavery campaigning of Fredrick Douglass. The Category Is Books team loved the posy dedicated to poet Marie Maitland, and also mentioned how inspired they were to see so many disabled campaigners featured. One person wrote to me the day after they collected their posy to thank me for the project, they said “The wee bouquets made my day yesterday. I’d had some difficult health news and wasn’t going to come out [to Tribe Porty], but the posies made me feel part of such a lovely inspiring community, and made me feel better. Having the flowers at home reminds me of that!”.