People can enjoy colors and scents being closely surrounded by flowers in “home of color.” (in Gifu Prefecture)
Kotaro Yamada
– “Flower is home of color” exhibition (Gifu-shi, Gifu Prefecture) –
The Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu, in Gifu Prefecture is now becoming a popular venue for enjoying close contact with plants and flowers as well as their various shades.
Hibino collecting impatiens seeds. “I hope visitors enjoy colors of plants running dry, not just cute flowers and green leaves,” said Hibino.
The museum currently holds a special exhibition called “Art-maru-ket – Flower is home of color.” It allows visitors to have close contact with nature and enjoy seasonal change of flowers and plants arranged in a gigantic three-dimensional artwork directed by Katsuhiko Hibino, a 57-year-old well-known artist and curator of the museum. The artwork actually sits in the garden where people can come and enjoy walking free of charge. It consists of four jungle-gym-like structures of four to six meters high, which are constructed using local timbers and decorated with 650 pots of flowers containing 30,000 seedlings. The wooden buildings are all connected to each other so that people can go inside and see the flowers close at hand. There are approximately 30 different kinds of flowers and plants including marigold, impatiens, coleus and cotton, all grown locally by students of Gifu International Academy of Horticulture. According to Kumiko Yoshida, associate professor of the academy, “Flowers are set carefully considering the difference in colors and heights. This way, we can bring out the best part of each flower”
People can walk through the wooden frames using aisles that connect all four buildings.
The exhibition is open from September 5 through December 13. During that period, visitors are also encouraged to take part in the exhibition, for example, by participating in a Japanese washi paper flower workshop and a stamp rally in which you go round the venue to collect a certain number of stamps. Makoto Tani, a 16-year-old local senior high school student joined an open discussion with Hibino to talk about the beauty of flowers. “I feel the richness of nature when sitting in this place surrounded by flowers. I don’t’ usually feel this way in my ordinary life,” she smiled. As the autumn progress, flowers will die and produce seeds. On December 12 and 13, close to the end of the exhibition, the museum will invite visitors to “Seeds Harvest Festival,” an event to collect seeds and bring them home. “Humans have learnt colors from nature. By looking at plants going through their whole life from flowering to producing seeds, people can hopefully pick up a lot of colors in their lives,” said Hibino.
Gigantic three-dimensional artwork is designed to fit in museum garden and surrounding forests.
(Nov. 15, 2015)