Sunflower Fields in Boston: Roxbury Sunflower Project – Seeds of Wisdom 2023

Where to see sunflowers in the city:

• Large lot in Grove Hall near Blue Hill Ave and Warren St
• Martin's Park in the Seaport
• Dewey Square on the Rose Kennedy Greenway
• Between India St and High St on the Rose Kennedy Greenway

About the Project

Returning for its second year on The Greenway, Roxbury Sunflower Project: Seeds of Wisdom (2023) is a multi-site public artwork consisting of three large-scale sunflower installations throughout the park. This project is an extension of Holmes’ growing Roxbury Sunflower Project, which began in 2018 as a vision to use sunflowers to spread beauty and hope throughout the historically Black Boston neighborhood where the artist has lived since childhood. 

Building upon last year’s sunflower plantings in Dewey Square, this year’s project features ten different varieties of sunflowers throughout the park. Each landscape is dotted with bright golden signage featuring quotes curated by the artist to inspire, support, and nurture Boston’s younger generations. 

Sunflowers are heliotropic plants, which means they turn and shift to follow the movement of the sun through the sky each day. For Holmes, sunflowers represent resilience, inner beauty, self-determination and the ability for a community to evolve and emerge while staying deeply grounded in its history and traditions. “Sunflowers have a radiance that sustains us by inviting us to turn toward the light in all things,” she shares. the sunflowers are dotted with bright golden signage featuring poetry and quotations of inspiration curated by Holmes that speak to the importance of engaging, supporting, and nurturing Boston’s youth and upcoming generations. 

Beyond The Greenway, Roxbury Sunflower Project will be growing across the city of Boston this summer: through a partnership with the Friends of Martin’s Park and Hurst Landscaping, sunflower installations have also been planted in Martin’s Park in the Seaport and a large open lot in neighborhood of Grove Hall.

Roxbury Sunflower Project: Seeds of Wisdom (2023) is collaboratively organized, planned, and planted by an interdisciplinary team at The Greenway and beyond: Ekua Holmes, London Parker-McWhorter, Darrah Cole, Tori Hiney, Sam Trulli, David Hurst and team, Gina Lindner, Audrey Lopez, Joey Pellegrino and the team at PowerCorps BOS, a City of Boston program, Jen Coyne and Sierra Rothberg of Lusterity Design + Events, and Greenway volunteers.

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