Love and the Pollinators

Love and the Pollinators Flowers represent emotions and feelings: passion, purity, innocence, death but especially love e.g. Weddings and Valentine’s Day. The flowering plant is a perfect structure whose design has evolved with an ultimate goal: reproduction. Achieved by offering rewards to pollinators of nectar or pollen As cut flowers, they are a meaningful gift or decoration, available from supermarkets, florists or nurseries regardless of the season. The Global cut flower market is forecasted to reach USD 49,074.09 million by 2028. In the UK, out of season cut flowers are sourced mainly from the Netherlands, Kenya, Colombia and Israel. Cut flowers are often grown in insect (pollinator) unfriendly environments, under artificial light in hothouses or intensively plantation farmed using high levels of pesticides. These images of overseas origin supermarket cut flowers, purchased in the winter were taken using a stacking technique to present a more detailed view including some of the beautiful texture of the foliage and the petals. These are the storefront for pollinators, colourful, thin structures that surround the sexual parts of the flower, protecting the pistil and the stamen. The dead insects, posed with the flowers against a neutral back ground symbolise how irresponsible consumerism has the potential to damage our environment .