The Floral Arts Society of Pakistan’s Karachi chapter, named Gardenia, held a virtual event on Wednesday to demonstrate unique and beautiful styles of flower arrangements.
There are 47 members of Gardenia and over 350 members of the society across Pakistan who work for spreading awareness about flowers, gardening and nature.
The demonstration, titled ‘Enacting Free Standing Designs’, was conducted by floral art expert Asma Ansari, a coordination committee member and former president of the Floral Art Society’s Islamabad chapter, Magnolia.
According to Asma, the free standing designs is a subject on which masters in the field of flowers have worked around the world. In the demonstration, she taught the participants about steps to make free standing designs.
As nature is always in a flux, everything is constantly changing and becoming something else than what it was before. This applies to floral arrangers as well who also have the responsibility of keeping on evolving with the changing times and trends, as their work is viewed and evaluated all across the globe.
Keeping this idea, she taught about shapes and colours of flowers. She used air-conditioned pipes for one of her free standing flower arrangements. Another flower arrangement was decorated with jute and Christmas flowers.
She also made a free standing square and round frame with plants, flowers and cardboards. She said it was not necessary that you end up creating an arrangement which you intended to. “But you have to have correct elements of designs,” she stressed.
Free standing, according to Gardenia President Salma Ansari, is a form of floral art in which no floral foam, which is also known as oasis, or pin holder is used. “With plant material, we hold the entire arrangement,” she said.
Talking to The News about floral art, she said it initiated from Ikebana, which is the Japanese art of flower arrangement. It is also known as Kado. The tradition dates back to Heian period when floral offering were made at altars.
This design, according to Asma, was later picked up by the western designers who modified it. Flower arranging, she said, was new genre of fine arts. She added that paintings were two dimensional, whereas, flower arrangements were three dimensional, having length, breath and width.
This form of art, she said, formally started in 1950s and evolved like fine arts and now we have contemporary designs in it as well. “We are changing our styles by the passage of time,” she said, adding that Pakistan was following all the international standards in the art and had won several international competitions in this field. The Floral Arts Society of Pakistan has only female members and it became a member of the World Association of Flower Arrangers 10 years back.