Publications
Since its inception in 2005, The Pansy Project has received international recognition across contemporary art, photography, horticulture and queer cultural discourse. The Pansy Project is featured in TASCHEN’s landmark survey Trespass: A History of Uncommissioned Urban Art, one of the first major books to chart the global history of street art, graffiti and unsanctioned public art. Published with a preface by Banksy, the book brings together more than 150 artists whose work has transformed public space through activism, intervention and artistic trespass. Paul Harfleet’s work appears alongside many of the defining figures of urban art, including Keith Haring, Banksy, Guerrilla Girls, Jenny Holzer, Shepard Fairey, Barry McGee, Blu, Os Gemeos, Spencer Tunick, Gordon Matta-Clark and Jean Tinguely. The inclusion places The Pansy Project within an international history of artists who reclaim the street as a site of protest, memory and social change.
In 2022 The Pansy Project featured in Phaidon’s landmark book Flower: Exploring the World in Bloom, an international survey of more than 300 artists whose work is inspired by flowers. The book places Paul Harfleet’s photographs alongside iconic figures from the history of art, photography and contemporary practice, including Georgia O’Keeffe, Andy Warhol, David Hockney, Yayoi Kusama, William Morris, Takashi Murakami, Wolfgang Tillmans, Nobuyoshi Araki, Judy Chicago and Cecil Beaton. The inclusion positions The Pansy Project within a rich lineage of artists who use flowers to explore identity, beauty, politics and memory.
Below a selection of books that feature or mention The Pansy Project. The way in which The Pansy Project is represented in the pages below varies. For research purposes Monuments as Cultural and Critical Objects by Thomas Houlton (linked here) delves deeply into the context of The Pansy Project. Others are more of a visual representation and includes images from the last two decades. In The Feminist Killjoy by Sara Ahmed The Pansy Project is offered as an example of how our community explores the nature of language, you can hear a conversation with Sara Ahmed and Hannah Dawson here, towards the end of the video, Ahmed reads from her book section that refers to The Pansy Project. The books listed below have links to buy or explore.
- 2024 – Effeminate Belonging: Gender Nonconforming Experience and Gay Bottom Identities, Richard Vytniorgu – Link
- 2024 – The Feminist Killjoy Handbook, Sara Ahmed – Link
- 2024 – Rebel Garden, Musea Brugge, Exhibition Catalogue – Link
- 2023 – Get Guerrilla Gardening, Ellen Miles – Link
- 2022 – Flora Photographica, William A. Ewing, Danaé Panchaud – Link
- 2022 – Flower: Exploring the World in Bloom, Shane Connolly, Anna Pavord, Dr. Giovanni Aloi – Link
- 2021 – Strange Bright Blooms: A History of Cut Flowers, Randy Malamud – Link
- 2021 – Monuments as Cultural and Critical Objects: From Mesolithic to Eco-queer, Thomas Houlton – Link
- 2017 – Anarchism and Art, Mark Mattern – Link
- 2016 – Street Art: Ephemeral Games, Sophie Pujas – Link
- 2015 – Street Craft, Riikka Kuittinen – Link
- 2012 – Contemporary British Queer Performance, Stephen Greer – Link
- 2011 – The Lost Art of Walking: The History, Science, Philosophy, Literature, Theory and Practice of Pedestrianism, Geoff Nicholson – Link
- 2011 – Radical Gardening, George McKay – Link
- 2010 – Trespass: A History of Uncommissioned Urban Art, Carlo McCormick, Marc Schiller, Sara Schiller – Link
- 2009 – On Guerrilla Gardening, Richard Reynolds – Link
The video above, from TASCHEN introduces Trespass: A History of Uncommissioned Urban Art, by Carlo McCormick, Marc Schiller, Sara Schiller.