186 metal sunflowers stand outside the Connecticut IB Academy. Each one represents a child’s life that was lost during the war in Ukraine.
CIBA Art Teacher Suzanne Kent created the project for her senior art students hoping to spread awareness about the conflict and to show them how art can make an impact.
“It really gave us a whole new meaning as to what we were doing. It wasn’t just an art project anymore,” said Summer Gherri, senior at CIBA
The students took soda or seltzer cans, cut them, painted them and turned them into flowers. Sunflowers are the national flower of Ukraine.
Senior Tyler Davis said, “Initially I thought the project was really tedious because it felt very repetitive, cutting cans, putting them together. But I’m just really impressed with the amount of work we put in and what we were able to get out of it.”
All together, they created 186 sunflowers and placed them one by one outside of the school. A tag on each flower reads, “Please take a sunflower in honor of a child who has lost their life during the recent tragedy in the Ukraine.”
“I’m really glad that we were able to do this project,” said Gherri. “We really underestimate the significance that [art] has. It’s one of the ways that we’re able to empathize with one another and understand each other.”
“I hope, because of the amount of sunflowers out there, they’re able to make that connection that this is a visual representation of how many people are gone and it just makes everything more real,” said Davis.