KARACHI: How flowers can be expressive, meaningful, and even enhance the power of poetry is aptly demonstrated at the Sogetsu Ikebana Flower Exhibition, which opened on Friday at a local mall.

Set on the theme ‘Bahaar Aai’ (Spring has come), the event is a special treat for everyone; it lends colour to words, generates interest in ordinary material that can be turned into a thing of beauty with little effort and brings one closer to nature.

“It’s all about spring. The show is unique in the sense that it’s the first time that our students have attempted to depict the beauty in a certain piece of poetry through their floral exhibits,” said Nafisa Tapal, director of the Indus Sogetsu Study Group, which has put up the event at LuckyOne Mall.

All flowers and plants used in the show were locally grown by Pakistan Bloom, a non-profit entity dedicated to promoting local growers, also collaborating with the group, she added.

Explaining why Sogetsu School was chosen to promote Ikebana, Tapal said it’s the most modern form of the Japanese floral art that anyone could learn anytime, anywhere and using any material.

“While we follow the basic Ikebana theme of creating more out of less, this style has no boundaries. You can see here exhibits made with a combination of fresh and dry plant materials as well as those prepared exclusively with stones and water.”

One has to commend the artists on the selection of their verses and depiction. It won’t be an exaggeration to say that some exhibits were so stunning that it made it hard to decide whether the verse that led to the creation of the exhibit was more impressive or the display itself.

Iqbal seemed to be the choice for most creative pieces. Some, however, had chosen Ghalib, Faiz, Parveen Shakir and Pirzada Qasim.

“By this show, we want to educate visitors about their indigenous plant wealth, their poetry and surroundings. They will notice and appreciate how we have created beauty with the help of things often thrown away as waste,” shared Nadia Balagam, an artist.

At the opening ceremony, Consul General of Japan Toshikazu Isomura congratulated the organisers and expressed the hope that people would visit in great numbers and enjoy it.

Well-versed in Urdu, the chief guest also spoke about Ikebana’s popularity across the world especially among women and said “the Japanese art is also a way of bringing people and cultures together”.

Published in Dawn, February 27th, 2021