The ‘Voyage’ show aims to connect people and culture through the beauty of one thing: flowers.
“Voyage is all about global discovery… discovery of places, some places people have never heard of…It’s about the storytelling of those destinations.” Karen Marshall, co-founder of ‘Fleur de Villes’, said. “We want people to come in and see incredible local floral artists at work, but we also want people to learn something from our shows.”
This year, the Voyage show visits the Prudential center in Boston, Massachusetts, from Nov. 2-Nov. 6.
“So many things are anchored in the emotions of flowers,”
— Karen Marshall
Voyage is just one showcase run by Marshall’s company, ‘Fleur de Villes’.
“Fleurs de Villes means ‘flowers of cities’,” Marshall said. “We go to cities around the world, we pop up 5-10 day luxury flower shows, featuring the best local floral artists. This is our 90th show in five countries, 24 cities and we’ve worked with over 1,000 floral artists.”
Because the plants wilt before the convention ends, the artists work on these statues daily.
“It’s like 3-4 hours (of work) on Monday, almost 8 hours on Tuesday,” said Suphoj Chancheaw, an artist of one of the 18 mannequins. “It’s kind of fun… the process (gives) peace. I like this kind of work.”
Chancheaw is the local owner of Bloom Couture Floral Haus, and worked on the Cape Verde Mannequin. Voyage seems to do what it meant to: show off floral art from around the world.
“There’s Boston, India, China, and Scotland,” Alissa, a mall-goer, said. “It’s very cultural.”
On top of bringing cultures to Boston, Voyage can also bring comfort.
“In Boston here winter is so cold…” Alissa said. “It’s so warm and lively to bring flowers into the mall to make it so fresh, and back to summer again.”
This atmosphere was felt by others, even as they had just walked through the doors.
“We just walked into the mall and we went from cold outside to feeling warm right away.” Deborah Larsen, who had brought her granddaughter to the Prudential center. “We were greeted by very bright flowers at the Hawaiian display.”
Marshall encourages everybody to look into Fleur de Villes. More information can be found on their website.
“We have great stories every month about flowers from around the world and how they connect people,” Marshall said. “So many things are anchored in the emotions of flowers,”
