Daisies, Dates and Dustbins

Hattie Kongaunruan

‘Daisies, Dates and Dustbins’ is an interactive stall encouraging residents to join in with a rubbish exchange.

The stall takes on the appearance of a traditional street food cart, but in place of bhajis and burgers are blossoms and blooms. Every Festival-goer who picked up a piece of litter and handed it over received a one-of-a- kind flower, which had been made entirely from scrap and surplus materials and anyone who collected 15 or more items could get a special recipe book containing meal inspiration from chicken biryani to hotpot, created by the Creative conversation group with Artist Hattie Konguanruan.

The group, now named “the salvage sisterhood’ are themselves no strangers to picking up rubbish. On a 50m round trip from the doorway of OT Creative Space, they collected five bags full of litter, the oldest with a use by date of 2022.

Upcycling artist Hathaikan Kongaunruan has been leading the sessions, along with Creative Conversations group leader Gulnaz Tahir. She said: “After cleaning up some of the collected items, including crisp bags and chocolate wrappers, we strung them on a hanging wire, from the oldest to the most recent use by dates. 

“We used this ‘rubbish timeline’ to rekindle memories and to think about future wishes, which often involved preparing food and eating together with family. From this, we developed the community recipe book, which contains family stories as well as meal ideas. 

eclaimed arratives

“The group then decided that floral gifts would be a great way to encourage others to also pick up litter, and so our beautiful cart, Daisies, Dates and Dustbins, was born! We have now made over 240 flowers, each one unique, and all made from scrap or surplus materials including pipe cleaners, maps, magazines and fabric scraps. Absolutely nothing was bought new for this project.”