“To Move is to Bloom” (2025) — Vladimir Lalić’s
Soaring public sculpture for Art Voyage’s Echoes of Migration, celebrating movement, renewal, and belonging, supported by Arts Council England and the National Lottery.
Lalić’s large-scale sculpture, “To Move, is to Bloom” 2025, rises from the lake in Manor House Gardens in the form of a dragonfly. It draws on his own experience of displacement, symbolising migration as a natural cycle of fragility and renewal, as Lalic said this installation is for them, for those who have crossed borders, for those who live in between cultures, and for those who have found belonging in this vibrant borough, same as him.
Photo Credit Kevin Percival
Photo Credit Kevin Percival
For Echoes of Migration, Vladimir envisions a species of imagined creatures – hybrids between insects and flowers emerging from the lake. Inspired by the natural phenomenon Cvetanje Tise (the blooming of the Tisza River) near Novi Bečej (Serbia), the region where his father was born, these beings embody both fragility and resilience.
They rise from the water like migrants crossing boundaries – physical and metaphorical – shedding their forms as they move toward air and light. In their transformation, they celebrate the life-giving power of migration: its capacity to renew both nature and humanity, reminding us that through movement, we bloom.
Photo Credit Kevin Percival
About Echoes of Migration Public Art in Manor House Garden
Step into a landscape where art, nature, and stories intertwine.
The Echoes of Migration public sculptures celebrate the beauty of migration, of movement, each work a symbol of resilience, belonging, community, and renewal. Together, they speak of the shared journey of migration and the cultural threads that shape our communities.
Continue your path to the garden of Pistachios in the Park, where Ryan Hawaii’s vivid textile installation “La Mesa Del Pueblo” (The People’s Table) (2025) gathers stories of local heroes, small businesses, and migrant communities around a shared table of creativity and pride.
Your journey doesn’t end there — follow it onward to Manor House Gardens, where Alice Burnhope’s residency invites you into a space of making, dialogue, and discovery. There, her tactile and immersive works open new conversations about migration, materiality, and care — continuing the exchange that began with the Echoes of Migration Summit 2025.
Let this walk be an invitation to reflect, connect, and explore.
Visit the link below to learn more about the artists, their stories, and the wider Echoes of Migration project.
Join us!
Your donation to Echoes of Migration, is not just supporting a project – you’re joining a movement that celebrates migrant communities, empowers artists, and transforms public spaces into living places of memory, creativity, and pride.
Together, we can make sure every story is seen, heard, and valued!