Living Letters

"Blümerant", a temporary public event staged in Berlin's Gendarmenmarkt in 2007, was designed by the art group, msk7 in an effort to stimulate communication. The group of 7 women artists transformed a large public square into a walk-in crossword puzzle. The enormous letters, made of mats of sedum, grass, lichens and moss vegetation, comprised words absorbed into local Berlin slang from the French Huguenots who immigrated to the area 300 years earlier. I can't speak about the actual outcomes of this crossword event or if the puzzle was physically completed, but I imagine the first sight of all the giant living letters must have been puzzling for many. My first reaction was...do they need weeding? And where are these letters living now?