From Cultural Roots to Blossoming Art: Exploring the Fleurs de Villes VOYAGE Showcase
Just as a flower grows from a simple seed to a vibrant blossom, 18 artists’ visions were brought to life, from ideation to execution, in the VOYAGE show this week. Eighteen different florists blended cultural symbolism and traditions together with their own artistic identities to decorate the floral mannequins featured in the Fleurs de Villes’s Boston show.
One of the biggest goals of the artists was to design an exhibit that would reflect, honor, and celebrate the unique aspects of each culture. For instance, Yanique Shaw, the founder of Yanique Events and the creator of the Bermuda mannequin, themed her installation around the Bermuda moongate. The moongate is an arch commonly found throughout walkways in the country, and is said to bring luck, especially to newlyweds. In creating the arrangements, she says Fleurs de Villes gave the florists a lot of freedom to be creative, allowing her to enhance her floral expertise with her research on Bermudian culture and her personal cultural connections.
“It’s really important to me to be authentic with this design,” said Shaw. “I’m from Jamaica, another Caribbean island, so it’s an honor for [Bermuda Tourism and Fleurs de Villes] to ask me to do Bermuda’s [installation]. As the Caribbean is so small, we’re like one family”
Nevertheless, considering the often fickle nature of flowers, there were some challenges with logistics and mechanics.
“The design process was all about how we can maximize the space we have,” said Shaw. “There were also a lot of mechanics to consider, considering what’s going to stay alive and how everything will look the next day.
In addition, Jennifer Allen, owner of Market Floral Studio, blended both key aspects of India’s fashion world as well as her expertise in floral color palettes when creating the India mannequin exhibit.
“I was inspired by the vibrant colors showcased in India’s fashion world,” wrote Allen in our interview. “Hot pinks and oranges are also one of my favorite combos I knew I just had to incorporate in this design.”
Like many of the designs featured in VOYAGE, Allen’s India mannequin not only required plenty of flowers and greenery, but also woodwork — for the wooden frame on which the flowers were arranged.
According to Lisa Greene (AAF, AIFB, PFCI) who is the owner of Beach Plum Flower Shop and the creative director of the Columbia mannequin, the artists were first approached about the project about a month ago, and then had about 10 days to put together their floral exhibit after receiving their mannequin. After creating their installations, each florist arrived early the morning of Thursday, November 2, to put up their exhibit, and will continue to refresh their florals throughout the week.
“As we’re setting up and interacting with the crowds, people walking by in public would stop and they would tell us, [for example,] I grew up in Colombia, these flowers are what you see there, fields and fields of them,’” said Greene. “I’m a florist, and a lot of people say florists sell flowers. But we don’t really sell flowers, we sell emotion.”