Bottle Flower series by Makoto Azuma

This is our 2nd environment-related post to commemorate Earth Day.

Floral artist Makoto Azuma has been challenging our relationship with plants for quite some time now. It’s not a commonly discussed topic, especially amongst floral designers who make their living by often ending the life of plants in order to make a pretty display.  But Azuma, whether he is creating an installation of flowers to be stomped on during a performance, or removing an age-old bonsai from its soil and hanging it in mid-air, approaches the subject matter head on.

In his latest series Bottle Flower, which he has been releasing over the last few days, Azuma creates bold yet somewhat disturbing pieces comprised of flowers stuffed into glass bottles like sardines and then filled with water. The flowers, which are shockingly beautiful but also clearly dead, invoke images of laboratory experiments in which body parts are preserved in some sort of embalming fluid. The existential project, which finds beauty in both the life and the death of his material, is certainly an appropriate one for earth day.

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