Flower power takes a crack at unsightly streetside pockmarks

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  Guangdong artist Luo Shengtian launched the "Blooming Patches" project to fill the crevices on streets and walls with hair felt flowers. Some flower patches were to remain on Nanchang Road in Shanghai after the Street Life Festival, which ended on Sunday.

  Courtesy of Lookurating Studio
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At first sight, it looks like a tiny flower growing out of the crack in a streetside wall. But take a closer look and you'll notice that it's actually a hair felt flower filling the crevice.

Such flowers – sometimes called "hair felt mushrooms" – can be found on Nanchang Road in Huangpu and Xuhui districts, a legacy of the recent Street Life Festival there.

The flowers are the work of Luo Shengtian, an artist based in the southern city of Guangzhou, and his friends. It is part of his Blooming Patches project that has been underway for about a year.

Luo, who studied at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, started it as his graduation project. Its exploding popularity went far beyond his expectations.

"Blooming Patches can be now seen both at home and abroad – in Shanghai, Beijing, Heilongjiang Province, Italy, the United Kingdom and New Zealand," Luo said.

Courtesy of Lookurating Studio

The first patch appeared in Nanting, a small village area alongside the arts academy. Home to a population of 4,000, the village was largely left behind in the tide of urbanization; its houses are old and its streets uneven.

Luo wanted to patch over some of the cracks, holes and crevices in the old area, while retaining its distinctive character.

"I thought of my father, who was fond of growing flowers," he said. "He inspired me to think that maybe I could use flowers in my restoration project. They are bright and dynamic."

Making and installing a "flower patch" takes Luo no more than 15 minutes. He attaches the flowers and felt grass at home. At the scene of repair, he first fills holes and crevices with clay and then glue before pressing the flower patches in.

Luo said he never expected people to take pictures of the felt flowers and upload them online. Some of the posts went viral, and interest in this small bit of urban beautification spread.

Luo formed an online chat group, and published an online guide on how to make felt patches.

One of Luo's favorite patches is the one at a tong-shui, or Cantonese-style dessert shop, which once had a large hole in its outside wall. Luo and his friends, worried that the shop owner might not give them permission, installed the patch secretly.

Courtesy of Luo Shengtian

Courtesy of Luo Shengtian

However, the owner was familiar with the Blooming Patches project and asked Luo if he was behind the wall "repair."

"The owner told me that he had intended to mend the hole for a long time but didn't find the time," Luo said. "The owner himself was a lover of handicrafts and was so happy about the patch that he offered us a month's free tong-shui. We have become very close friends."

That was not the end of the story. When Luo later went back to the shop to maintain the patch, he found that two mushroom-shaped patches have been added. He doesn't know who did that.

More than 300 people around the world have joined Luo's project. Felt flower patches have appeared on the sides of canals in Venice, at a university campus in New Zealand and in many other places.

"A Chinese student in New Zealand told me she was doing a local design project at her university," Luo said. "She crafted a white flower with a crescent-shaped stamen to express the idea in a Chinese poem: How much brighter the moonlight is at home."

Courtesy of Luo Shengtian

Courtesy of Luo Shengtian

Luo's project has become a mini model, of sorts, for creative urban renewal. That's why Luo was invited to set up an exhibition at the Street Life Festival. Some of the patches, especially smaller ones, remain on Nanchang Road even after the end of the festival.

Lookurating Studio, the exhibition's curator, said the "Blooming Patches" project is not an art exhibition as such, but rather an artistic endeavor that fuses with the city's natural and construction environments.

"The project is like a living space that embraces common people," said a curator who identified himself only as "Vo." "It inspires us to discuss urban sustainability, community, environment, civic spirit and other factors."

The project was indeed rooted in the spirit of urban renewal. However, it needs to respect the heritage and wishes of local residents, Luo said.