We’re waking up with Spring, the Madeleine Strindberg on-line exhibition has just opened, the next Mixtape show is on the way in a couple of weeks, and we’re working on a number of other things that we’re keeping under our hats right now, and talking of right now…

Cultivate presents: Sean Worrall, #43Leaves, 43 pieces of art left hanging on the streets of London, York, Birmingham and… throughout March 2025

New year, new leaves, you might have noticed another year-long art drop is underway, another 365 #43Leaves pieces are to be left hanging out there throughout 2025. It started on January 1st, it has been quietly happening already, it is mostly a fair weather sport, wind and rain does not make for good leaf-leaving.  

As always, and this is an important bit, as always, painted on found unwanted recycled material picked up off the street. Material that was going to waste, heading for landfill, unwanted material picked up, cleaned up, painted on and then left back out there on the street for someone to just take should they wish to. it is about waste, it is about how we waste so much and if we leave things out there then leaves will grow on them, the recycling (upcycling?) is a very important part of it. The leaving on leaves has been going on for years now, I suspect there has been about 3000 of them left (one London art critic said it was just a publicity stunt, something Adam Neate would do apparently, which of course was absolute nonsense and the kind of clueless thing a London art critic would say). 

This is the third time there has been a year long art drop, it isn’t one a day, it will work out as 365 during the year. five were left hanging in East London last Saturday for instance. The pieces all come with the #43Leaves hashtag on the back so people can join in a post and tell us when they find a piece and what has happened to it, it is good to know and some of the leaves have gone on wonderful adventures around the world, my art gets to travel far more than I ever do and it is true to say that the majority of drops happen in London. However this March I find myself have to make a number of art-related journeys so this month you might JUST find leaves being left in York, in Birmingham and a number of other places beyond the city of London. There will once again be specific events where leaves will be left during the year – previously leaves have been left as official parts of the Fringe at Folkestone Triennial, of the Deptford X Fringe, as part of the Liverpool Biennial, in a forest in Sussex as part of the Byline Festival one year, there’s been art drops in Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Margate, Shrewsbury, Bristol, Brighton, Hastings, art drops as part of Upfest in Bristol, at the Leytonstone Art Trail, as part of Hackney WickEd to name but a few. I can’t recall when the first “art drop” was, a quick back of an envelope calculation has it easily past 2000 paintings and pieces left, probably more like 3000 over the last dozen years or so, I wasn’t really counting before that. It has been happening since the last century, the art of art dropping was a thing well before smart phones and Instagram and photographing absolutely everything.

And so this month, there will be at least 43 leaves left in London, in York, in Birmingham and who knows where else. five were left in East London last Saturday in the Spring sunshine, tomorrow, Tuesday March 11th, York will be the place and then on it will go throughout the month, at least 43 of them.. 

It is about engagement, it is about art being on the streets, outside the gallery, outside the formality of contemporary art (that idea upset another London art critic, he really couldn’t get his head around that one). It about reaching out to people, it is about the people who choose to take the pieces and the stories they tell us, about other people using the hashtag and posting photos of them with the pieces. Tomorrow I shall leave a dozen or so pieces in York, in a couple of weeks I shall do the same in Birmingham, will we ever know what has happened to the paintings once I’ve walked away from them? 

This year we are also filming all the drops, use the #43Leaves hashtag to search on YouTube or find a playlist of films made so far here…   

A selection of previous #43Leaves pieces   / Facebook event page