Japanese studio who sent a bonsai to space's Encyclopaedia of Flowers

Date
4 June 2015

Do you remember when brilliant Tokyo-based artist Makoto Azuma sent a bunch of flowers and a pine white bonsai into space to see what might happen? The whole world seemed to watch with bated breath as they slowly started to disintegrate, scattering petals and leaves across the Earth’s stratosphere. The project won a Yellow Pencil at this year’s D&AD awards, prompting us to take a deeper look at Makoto’s practice, and we’re awfully glad we did.

Working predominantly with flowers and plants, the artist first created a “haute couture” flower shop in the Ginza district of Japan, but has now formed a studio dealing entirely in the artistic representation of green matter. This overarching theme encompasses botanical sculptures, photographic series and even an Encyclopedia of Flowers, and it’s the latter that we’re most fascinated by.

Strikingly designed and a full 512 pages long, the book includes more than 15,000 flowers and plants, and contains an index listing the scientific names of all the plants which have been featured. Retaining and documenting the flowers it works with came naturally to the studio, Makoto explains. “Our daily work happened to take on the additional notion of creating a document of nature as it is forced by human desires to undergo constant renewal.” He continues, “Carefully retaining these flowers for record turned out to be our never-ending mission. The Encyclopedia of Flowers is quite simply a stationary observation of the time and reality in which we live.”

Above

Makoto Azuma: The Encyclopedia of Flowers, photograph by Shiinoki

Above

Makoto Azuma: The Encyclopedia of Flowers, photograph by Shiinoki

Above

Makoto Azuma: The Encyclopedia of Flowers, photograph by Shiinoki

Above

Makoto Azuma: The Encyclopedia of Flowers, photograph by Shiinoki

Above

Makoto Azuma: The Encyclopedia of Flowers, photograph by Shiinoki

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About the Author

Maisie Skidmore

Maisie joined It’s Nice That fresh out of university in the summer of 2013 as an intern before joining full time as an Assistant Editor. Maisie left It’s Nice That in July 2015.

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