We’ve been lucky to be involved in some amazing projects and this is right up there with the best! Birmingham City Council approached us to see if we could help them out with their Chelsea Flower Show Garden this year that they’d been working on with former Play School presenter and now Baroness, Floella Benjamin.
2018 marks the 70th anniversary of the Windrush arriving in the UK and so Floella wanted to celebrate the fantastic work the ‘Windrush Generation’ has done for the UK that she teamed up with our local council to put her Chelsea Flower Show vision together. The garden was to feature a replica of the Empire Windrush, the first ship to bring immigrants over from the Caribbean to help the UK rebuild after the second world war. To make it about the people, Floella and BCC wanted to make sure they were represented in the garden – and turned to us to see if we could help.
Of course, 3D scanning people is what our scanning rig was built for!
One hot Saturday morning our studio was filled with people ready to be 3D scanned. Floella and the Council brought along some inspirational people with a connection the Windrush, some decedents from the original passengers, others part of the Windrush Generation themselves – everyone had interesting stories to tell.
The figures took a few weeks to process, complete the artwork and 3D print before they winged their way to Chelsea.
The Windrush Garden won an RHS Chelsea Gold medal, the icing on the cake!
After the Chelsea Flower Show, the garden’s going on display in Victoria Square outside the town hall before being planted in it’s permanent home in Handsworth Park.
(some images provided by Birmingham City Council).