Grow your boat gently down the stream

Students at leafy Bath Spa University are sending a meadow on a barge to comfort grass-starved Londoners, writes Anna Fazackerley.

The floating garden will be towed by a tugboat down the Kennet and Avon Canal to the River Thames, eventually crossing the East End of London.

It will set off on June 11 and should take three weeks to reach the capital.

But office workers may be disappointed - the moving sculpture is intended as a symbol of the dissemination of knowledge from Bath to the wider world, and not as a place where they can sunbathe.

Artist Tania Kovats has been commissioned to design the installation.

This week, staff and students at the new university's School of Art and Design were busy sowing two meadows that measure 15m by 2m. One of them will remain permanently at the university's Sion Hill campus as a visual reminder of the project.

Ron George, head of the school, said: "This project is one of the most ambitious and innovative sculpture installations that I have encountered in a university context."

At the end of its journey, the meadow will spend some time moored at the Drawing Room, a contemporary arts venue in Hackney, East London.