Filomena was a powerful blast. The cracked trees left behind aching hearts, like those of Nuria and Inés. They, who devote body and soul to letting nature speak and flourish in their hands, were left as broken as the city’s wrecked groves. Therefore, instinctively, almost without a glance, they knew what they had to do: they began gathering broken branches, ripped-off bark and dismembered shrubs, taking them to a clearing in the forest. There, they started to transform desolation into beauty. Over a silent structure, the fallen branches and detached plant skins were gradually converted into something else, in a private ritual in which two troubled beings created something new out of desolation. What Nuria and Inés created was a new tree. A tree full of life, invoking the strength of the original tree, the one we all stem from.

Nuria and Inés, Inés and Nuria. Two who are many. A unique energy capable of transforming terrible Filomena into a symbolic totem of logs. A sacred totem, like the best of legends, in which death returns to life, and the totem will blossom like a tree in autumn: An offering of fruits and petals gathered throughout the city of Cordoba will adorn the sacrificial logs forever. The ritual is complete.

And this new tree arising from the earth’s tremor will take root in one of Cordoba’s courtyards of pulsing water and lime. Like in the garden of paradise, its shade and coolness will be eternal. An installation of mirrors will multiply the layers of plants, rendering the courtyard infinite in an illusion of successive images of nature reincarnated in nature. A garden of vegetation and whispers that brings to mind the Hispano-Arabic heritage. A place to remember who we are.

Once again, Nuria and Inés’ strong intuitions lead us towards beauty, reverberate in space and breathe life in all directions. Whoever said that springtime could not last forever?

(Carlos Risco, journalist)

Vidi Aquam egredientem de tempolo, a latere dextro, Alleluia:

Et Omnes ad quos Pervenit aqua ista, salvi facti sunt,

Et dicent: Alleluia, alleluia!

I saw water flowing from the right hand side of the temple, alleluia.

And all those to whom this water came

Were saved, and shall say, alleluia, alleluia!

“The magnificent Naranjos Courtyard of the Mezquita di Cordoba, takes my breath away. Its simplicity, its scale and its assured serenity are ancient, beloved symbols of the beautiful city of Cordoba. To be invited to add to something that is already perfect, is both humbling and daunting in equal measure. So I wanted to tread lightly… both environmentally and aesthetically. I wanted our design to reflect the spiritual and the secular; the purity of faith and the needs of a country and a world recovering from a devastating pandemic, and facing environmental catastrophe.

Water has played an essential role in this courtyard since its creation. In both Islam and Christianity water symbolizes purity and life, redemption and salvation.

These pools and canals of water are drawn from the ancient wells of the cathedral-mezquita. 

They echo the existing Moorish designs from the Mezquita’s Islamic past, but run west to east in the current Christian tradition; uniting both faiths respectfully and harmoniously. 

The metal they are made of will be recycled after the festival.

In them we have placed thousands of red carnations, a flower with long associations to Spain and especially to Cordoba. These flower are grown in Andalucia, so they are of its own soil and carry the lowest carbon footprint possible in this place.

We invite you to come and place one in the pool in memory of someone you know who died in the pandemic; and when you leave, take with you some comfort and strength from this ancient place of succor.  

A setting of the Easter antiphon, Vidi Aquam, by the Spanish 16th Century composer, Tomás Luis de Victoria plays constantly, to remind us of the many centuries of faith and devotion that built this extraordinarily beautiful place of worship”.

For this years FLORA contest, TABLEAU will create an installation called “Time to move on”. The installation invites its audience to reflect on the past and together move on from the very unusual time we’ve gone through the last 1,5 year. 

The installation is inspired by the pandemic, but especially an attempt to remind people and our selves that it is now time put it behind us. Therefore TABLEAU wanted to create something which could illustrate weight, movement, strength, and happiness. We wanted to inspire people to think about what they’ve learned during the past year(s) while being optimistic and looking forward into a brighter future. 

For the installation a scaffolding will be built, surrounding the fontaine all the way around. From this scaffolding a pendulum will be placed in a rotation machine which will spin around in a slow, steady pace, any time during day and night. The movement of the pendulum is created by a rotating machine but also by the strength of each entities hanging in each side of the pendulum.

In this way, you could say the pendulum creates time – an aspect TABLEAU wanted to use. A pendulum is all about weight, strength, time and movement. We as humans needs to be uplifted (weight), be supported by and carry each other as a pendulum (strength). While we remember the past, we also need to be looking into the future (time) and move forward (movement). A lot of flowers will be seen crawling around, creating a timeline, optimism and happiness.

This poetic dandelion sprouts up, making a crack in the barren ground of adversity.

This dandelion stands tall, challenging, and invites us to blow on it to make our wishes come true.

This dandelion turns us into children.

We blow with all our might, from the deepest of our depths, with the excitement of our childlike hearts and the certainty of enthusiasm, with the strength of tenderness (because there is nothing more powerful than a kind gesture).

Let us blow and create a trail of spores yearning to come out into a reality that makes us better, happier. ALL OF US.

Because continuing to dream is a necessity, because with strength, valour and determination our desires can come true.

Let us blow for a friendlier world, please.

That’s my DESIDERATUM.

What’s yours?

(Carolina Estévez, Terabitia)

“The location, the culture, the time we live in gives me the inspiration for this theme: the force. 

I experience it as very inspirational and positively challenging to find a way on how to respect all the contextual components and creating beauty in the process of it. It’s by connecting all the dots in a holistic way of this context and respecting the material, nature, environment, budget and my 7 secret rules for creating harmonious less is more floral design that this happens. For me as a servant of beauty, beauty comes first and technique is there to support it in a humble, non visible but powerful way.

Your strengths are the unique expression of the force within you, through you and by you. What is your strength? How do you bring that force within you to the world in an authentic way to serve?

May the force be within you.” (Tom De Houwer)