Asheer Akram has used the word “nightmare” more than once the past few minutes. He shakes his head. This project, he tells me, is “the worst idea I ever had.” It’s late August, and I’ve met up with Akram and some of his many collaborators in a garage at 18th Street and Forest. Belger Cartage has provided this indoor space for the finishing work, which has been under way constantly for many days. (Akram has been a resident at Belger Crane Yard Studios on Tracy Avenue for a little more than two years.) For the past four months, Akram says, completing this idea has been a full-time job for seven or eight people, working 16 hours a day. As recently as an August 11 Facebook post, a photo showed what looked almost like a blank canvas. An August 21 Facebook update put out an emergency call for a flower painter.

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