Cape Town Floriography
Cape Town Floriography
"Cape Town Floriography is a public history and art project that takes place at various flower markets in Cape Town on Heritage Day, 24 September 2016." - Nowseum Blog
About the project
Cape Town Floriography, a Nowseum project by Melanie Boehi, explores the fascinating history and influence of the flower sellers of Cape Town. The first installation was developed as a series of posters exhibited as flower wrapping papers.
"For long flower sellers have used newspaper sheets to wrap up flowers. Old newspaper was thereby given a second life. Cape Town Floriography is inspired by this recycling of newspaper, however it changes the direction of the cycle by producing a new paper that can only be read once the flowers are unpacked." - Nowseum blog
About the Design
When Melanie approached me with the task of designing a poster to use as flower wrapping, I loved
the idea. This was the perfect medium to exhibit this story, a history that most Cape Townians don't know about - even though most of them see these flower sellers daily. There was no set brief in terms of aesthetic, other than it being a black and white print, which allowed me to put some ideas forward. While experimenting, I discovered that the borders and edges of the paper would be the most visible part when wrapped. I passed the idea of illustrating a detailed flower border to Melanie who loved the idea so much that she used the border for the entire poster series.
The illustrated flowers are a mix of real, hybrid and fantasy flowers.
The posters were exhibited on Adderley Street, Trafalgar Square and The Castle of Good Hope.
And they even made the Weekend Argus!
To learn more about Cape Town Floriography, visit the Nowseum blog and read all about this wonderful project and the rich history of flower sellers in Cape Town!
I'd love to know what you think about this project so please leave a comment in the comments section below!
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