Broad Meadow is back with more planters!

Following its first iteration in May and June 2024, Broad Meadow 2.0 is a wildflower installation and audio experience that has been specially created for Broadmead, inspired by its history.

Featuring 70 planters, located on Broadmead West (near Boots), Merchant Street North (by Excelsior and TK Maxx) and Merchant Street South (close to Specsavers), it will be in place for the next two to three years, for Bristol residents and visitors (and pollinators!) to enjoy.

The new version of Broad Meadow includes small trees, to give some height, and shrubs, and in the autumn bulbs and hellebores will be planted.

Access the audio piece, with captions available at broadmeadow.art/listen.

Learn more about the project at BroadMeadow.art

A wildflower installation and audio experience by artists Sylvia Rimat and Charli Clark.

Smell the sweet scent of flowers, hear the buzz of wings and submerge yourself in the lost nature of our city centre. You’re invited to take a seat and relax in a wildflower meadow installation that gives you a taste of what life used to be like in Broadmead.

Whilst immersed in the plants and wildlife around you, you’ll be able to access an audio piece via your smartphone. The audio experience addresses our intertwined relationship with the plant world and connects us to Bristol prior to the 1500s, when Broadmead was a wet meadow, regularly flooded by the river Frome. The wildflower installation’s soil structure and plant species have been carefully chosen to mimic the meadow that once may have grown there.

Age: 11+
Duration: 20 minutes

Watch the trailer on Vimeo.

The installation was made up of 55 wildflower boxes that have been planted in workshops with secondary school students across Bristol and with community groups. After the project ended in 2024, the boxes were distributed to Bristol schools and communities to continue to thrive as mini meadows.

Free lunchtime talk

Artists Sylvia Rimat and Charli Clark gave a free Lunchtime Talk at the Watershed on Friday 7 June 2024. Watch the replay on the Watershed’s Youtube channel.

This performance was part of Mayfest: Bristol’s international festival of contemporary theatre and live performance, curated and produced by MAYK. It was also part of The Festival of Nature 2024.