"International Connections" - A Floral Demonstration

Southland's Art Festival came to Central Southland on Saturday, 14 May 2011 when Winton-based designers Rhonda Hall and Rae Baxter presented a floral demonstration of contemporary floral concepts gathered from recent travels abroad.

Inspiration for this event resulted from observing top-class international competitors at work at the Interflora World Cup in Shanghai, China last year. Both Rhonda and Rae were excited to see the very latest trends by florist representatives from across Europe, Asia and Australasia.

"It was a real buzz to see established designers such as Stein Are Hansen from Norway and Jouni Seppenan from Finland working on their competition pieces - also to see the new emerging young guns like Chang Sun Won from Korea and Bjorn Kroner from Germany".

Other design ideas came from a stage presentation by Gregor Lersch (Germany) at the same event as well as the stunning architecture and sculpture parks in Shanghai.

Since returning from China Rhonda and Rae have worked on adapting some of the techniques and materials seen at the World Cup.

The contemporary designs in their "INTERNATIONAL CONNECTIONS" demonstration were a cross section of fresh ideas collected from their observations in Shanghai.