
Jane Withers curated an installation of floral design called Double Dutch – Appetites and Emotions in London earlier this month.

Commissioned by the Flower Council of Holland, the show featured a section called Appetites designed by Lisa White with Graham Hollick and incorporating vintage and contemporary objects.

Emotions consisted of five bouquets created by Dutch designers Niels van Eijk and Miriam van der Lubbe, called sympathy, love, happiness, anger, and jealousy (above).

Above: anger.

The following is from The Flower Council of Holland:
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Double Dutch – Appetites and Emotions
15th – 19th September
An unusual and highly sensual contribution to the 2008 London Design Festival has been created by The Flower Council of Holland. Double Dutch is an installation of floral design which shows how flowers can evoke emotions and conjure desire. Above: love.

Double Dutch, a ‘guerrilla installation’, curated by Jane Withers, has been created specially for the London Design Festival and designed by two design partnerships with strong links to the Netherlands: Lisa White and Graham Hollick and Miriam van der Lubbe and Niels van Eijk. The show merges decoration with desire in a botanical banquet which tempts the eye and captivates the mind. Above: happiness

Flowers have an almost visceral effect on humans. Whilst the colours and images of flowers have been used for centuries in designs which please and decorate there is also a provocative side to blooms and to the tantalising shapes, colours and textures of petals and leaves. Above: sympathy

In form, colour, texture and print, floral images have wound their way into fashion and design season after season, combining nature and culture in a visual and sensory feast. However, there is also secret meaning in flowers. When arranged in a certain way they become symbolic of emotion or of mysterious, hidden intent.

Appetites and Emotions
Appetites – a floral feast, created by Lisa White with Graham Hollick – offers a tempting tableau, a groaning board of seductive blooms, beckoning orchids, blushing roses, luscious carnations and voracious carnivorous plants. The visual ‘orgy’ will incorporate contemporary and vintage design elements to create a hybrid of nature and culture.
Bouquets of Emotions – displays five different bouquets created by Dutch designers Niels van Eijk and Miriam van der Lubbe representing different emotions: sympathy, love, happiness, anger, and jealousy. With the creation of ‘Bouquets of Emotions’ – flowers are used to evoke the passion and power of these emotions through expressive, abstract and striking floral art. For example, Anger is conveyed through snipped rose stems and withered branches. Happiness, by contrast, uses distinct, brightly coloured flowers to create a field of colour. The designers have used contrast and texture, hot and cool colours, soft or spiky, angular or curling plants and flowers to convey emotional intensity.
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Posted by Matylda Krzykowski


September 29th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Can someone remind me if Dezeen is really a design blog?
September 29th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
canna remind you of that as you already appear to know, but i will remind you of something zenza . . . . .
Some things in life are bad,
They can really make you mad,
Other things just make you swear and curse,
When you’re chewing life’s gristle,
Don’t grumble,
Give a whistle
And this’ll help things turn out for the best.
Always look on the bright side of life!
September 29th, 2008 at 11:55 pm
come on zenza, don’t be so micro-minded …
i really like it!
September 30th, 2008 at 12:29 am
Zenza,
If by any chance you would decide not to share your thoughts anymore, do not worry we would not miss them.
September 30th, 2008 at 12:37 am
what’s this?
September 30th, 2008 at 1:53 am
i see a rambutan hahaha.
September 30th, 2008 at 3:48 am
At the risk of being labeled a barbarian, I feel like the designers just placed words of emotions beside their floral arrangements randomly. None of these pictures evoked its corresponding emotion in me. In fact, the arrangements aren’t really much to look at.
September 30th, 2008 at 6:24 am
Well I am confused too!
September 30th, 2008 at 9:35 am
c’mon, open your eyes, and look around you, you can surely also appreciate the things more losely-related to design, I for one don’t wanna see page after page of Zaha renderings…. This show looks cool to me, good to see something different.
September 30th, 2008 at 10:52 am
You can take inspiration out if everything, and yes this a design blog and yes this is design. is been made a research, a concept development etc etc. Design is a wider practice than just a renderings of zaha and chairs of starck.
September 30th, 2008 at 11:49 am
I was lucky enough to see this very nice exhibition. Great great work. Much better in reality than in pictures.
September 30th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
florist have been making their work lke this for ages. even the arrangements are not new, i know this business very well ( am from floral holland) and know that these designers just touched some shallow surface again by placing words to them..
flowers are always good..
but please..
don’t reinvent the wheel !