The Pansy Project

Since founding The Pansy Project in 2005, Paul Harfleet has been planting pansies at sites of homophobic and transphobic abuse. Each flower is documented, titled after the words of the abuse, and added to this website. Through this quiet yet powerful act, the ongoing project gently confronts hate crime and brings visibility to LGBTQ+ experiences that often go unreported. To date, Harfleet has planted more than 300 pansies around the world—from London to New York and beyond. Learn more here.

Coming soon to a screen near you, The Pansies of Cornwall; a little film by Paul Harfleet, made in association with Arts and Culture Exeter and Cornwall Pride. Follow socials for further updates.

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Paul Harfleet was a featured artist for Remember Nature 2025, part of Homotopia Festival in Liverpool, the ‘Day of Action’ took place on 4th November and was hosted by FACT. Remember Nature was an ambitious new staging of the visionary art project initiated in 2015 by the celebrated artist Gustav Metzger (1926–2017). To mark the 10th anniversary of Remember Nature there was a nationwide day of art action to stand up for nature, realising Metzger’s hope and belief in the future power of art to halt universal extinction. More information here. Below one of the six pansies planted during the walking tour, more details will follow soon. Check out some of the coverage from The Guardian Newspaper. Above the six pansies planted during the event.

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“2025 marks twenty years since The Pansy Project began, to commemorate the occasion I’ve been reflecting on two decades of work in the Twenty Pansies essay. I have been planting across the UK, with the aim to reach twenty by the end 2025. If you have a location that you’d like to be marked with a single pansy then let me know here. More information and assets can be found here.”

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The PDF’s linked here offer further reflections on The Pansy Project. Musings on a Floral Tribute by Paul Harfleet explores the context of the Pansy Dress currently on show at Manchester Art Gallery. Antennae is a publication that features an in-depth article on the history of the project by Joey Orr – Page 81-93 – from 2020.

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Above a new design exclusively available at Manchester Art Gallery, read all about it here. Merchandise has always been of interest to Paul Harfleet, they consider it to be a way for the wearer to become an ambassador for The Pansy Project, more on the thinking behind each piece here. The small amounts raised from merch, contribute to some of the costs of the work, from pansies to travel.

Bio:

Paul Harfleet (he/him) is a British, London based queer artist that has been making work since he graduated from an Ma in Fine Art at the Manchester School of Art in 2004. He developed The Pansy Project in 2005 and moved to London in 2009 where he continues to practice as an artist whilst earning a living as an illustrator and designer. In 2020 he began a new project exploring the cultural history of ornithology, the project known as Birds Can Fly can be explored here. Both projects run simultaneously, you can contact the artist here for further enquiries and more on recent exhibitions here.

Further Context:

The plantings remain the core of The Pansy Project, though Harfleet has created other ways of sharing the conceptual story of The Pansy Project over the years, from eco-friendly merchandise, to a jewellery collaboration with Tatty Devine. In 2010 Paul collaborated with his brother Tom to create the Gold Medal winning Pansy Project Garden at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show. In 2017 he wrote and illustrated ‘Pansy Boy’, a children’s picture book that was short-listed for the Polari First Book Prize. In 2022 The Pansy Project was showcased by Cheddar Gorgeous on Ru Paul’s Drag Race UK, highlighting The Pansy Project to a new global audience. Since 2005 The Pansy Project has featured in many publications and on screen.

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How The Pansy Project Began by Paul Harfleet

“Fucking Faggot!” Upper Brook Street, Manchester, 2005

“A string of homophobic abuse on a warm summer’s day was the catalyst for this project. The day began with two builders shouting; “it’s about time we went gay-bashing again isn’t it?”; continued with a gang of yobs throwing abuse and stones at my then boyfriend and me, and ended with a bizarre and unsettling confrontation with a man who called us ‘ladies’ under his breath.

Over the years I have become accustomed to this kind of behaviour, but I came to realise it was a shocking concept to most of my friends and colleagues. It was in this context that I began to ponder the nature of these verbal attacks and their influence on my life. I realised that I felt differently about these experiences depending on my mental state so I decided to explore the way I was made to feel at the location where these incidents occur.

However, I did not feel it would be appropriate to equate my personal experience of verbal homophobic abuse with a death or fatal accident; I felt that planting a small unmarked living plant at the site would correspond with the nature of the abuse: A plant continues to grow as I do through my experience. Placing a live plant felt like a positive action, it was a comment on the abuse; a potential ‘remedy’. 

The species of plant was of course vitally important and the pansy instantly seemed perfect. 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 subtlety and elegiac quality of the flower was ideal for my requirements. The action of planting reinforced these qualities, as kneeling in the street and digging in the often neglected hedgerows felt like a sorrowful act.”

During the twentieth year of The Pansy Project Harfleet will continue to reflect on their memories of two decades of planting pansies at sites of homophobia, above and here. Joey Orr conducted an in depth interview for Antennae; The Journal of Nature and Visual Culture in 2020 and can be read here.

Explore the publications The Pansy Project has appeared in since 2005, here. In 2024 The Pansy Project featured in Rebel Garden an exhibition at Musea Brugge, Belgium, part of the Triënnale Brugge 2024, the work also appeared in the catalogue. Explore other exhibitions here.