In late October 2024, Brilliant Bamboo was awarded funding to develop two projects as part of the Stoke High Street Accelerator Greenspace Project through Stoke-on-Trent City Council and funds from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

Brilliant Botanical Murals is inspired by our passion for bamboo, our research and our search for a connection to our local story, this exciting project will see us collaborate with graphic artist, Rob Fenton, and commission another artist or collective.

In visiting a range of places and exploring collections in person and online we found that Spode, Wedgwood, and many other North Staffordshire-based pottery companies had also been inspired by bamboo in creating their wares from as early as 1780’s onwards. This project will connect our brilliant bamboo story to this earlier story of exploration, inspiration, and design as part of our history for today and the future.

Rob Fenton and another artist(s) will be creating two brilliant botanic murals: a bamboo-focused design, and another that will be inspired by other useful and overlooked plants found in pattern books and through conversations with a range of people.

We will be using the greenest paint available through Keim paints, and thinking through how to make the artworks the kindest to the environment as possible.

We’ll also be running a workshop where we get to use AIR-INK on a special design for people to take home.

We’ll share the process with you: keep an eye out on our blog, Instagram and LinkedIn. And, keep an eye out for final murals in Spring 2025.