The 2023 project Imagine Bamboo is Everywhere brought ten large bamboo structures to six boroughs across Liverpool City Region.
The installations, some reaching approximately 12 feet, were accompanied by performances, music, workshops and play equipment.
Local landscapes translated into bamboo
The structures responded to themes including views across Wirral, the bridges of Halton and the waves along Sefton’s coast.
Artists and community groups worked with engineers from Atelier One and bamboo specialists from Bali, Ghana, Australia and India.
The project used borinda bamboo harvested from Ness Botanic Gardens by a University of Liverpool team.
Bamboo’s strength, flexibility and rapid growth made it both a sculptural material and a subject for discussing construction, carbon capture, soil remediation and future design.
Public art built through participation
Events took place across Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, Sefton, St Helens and Wirral.
Visitors encountered the structures alongside an Imagine Bamboo Orchestra, circus performance, balancing activities and zones for making smaller objects.
An earlier phase, Taking Root, had asked volunteers to care for 24 young bamboo plants before they were installed in Court Hey Park.
The plants required several more years of growth before becoming suitable building material, turning the project into a longer experiment rather than a one-season event.
Imagine Bamboo is Everywhere used public art to make material research visible.
The installations were temporary, but the project asked a practical question about the future: whether a plant long used structurally in Asia, Africa and South America could play a larger role within British design and construction.