In this episode of Cult, we visit London's Saatchi Gallery, where an exhibition reveals how flowers inspire art, fashion and digital innovation - going beyond beauty to symbolise emotion, life and transformation.
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00:00Spring has already sprung here at London's Saatchi Gallery, where a new exhibition is
00:10exploring the influence of flowers on human expression and creativity, from painting and
00:17photography to fashion and film.
00:24Flowers, Flora and Contemporary Art and Culture features more than 500 works, exploring how
00:32blooms are not only depicted for their beauty, but also as symbols and metaphors for our
00:38emotions.
00:39It's rooted from the Renaissance up until the current day, and we have works that have
00:44been made just for this exhibition from contemporary artists. It's a very happy exhibition. We
00:50want people to leave feeling quite uplifted by the power of flowers within our lives.
00:58From high street to haute couture, flowers continue to flourish in the fashion world.
01:04For Finnish design house Marimekko, floral subjects have become a hallmark.
01:10We don't see florals as florals. We rather see them as an abstraction or the idea of
01:17a flower, and that is how we treat our floral prints in our collections. So I think the
01:21appeal is that you decide whether you engage with the flower as a floral subject or whether
01:28you engage with the emotion that the flower creates.
01:35Over 100,000 dried flowers make up this huge, immersive installation from British artist
01:42Rebecca Louise Law. La Fleur Mort explores life, death, and our relationship with nature.
01:50This theme will be looking at the place between life and death, and is it a dead flower, or
01:57have we brought life to the flower, and the questions of do we need more, and can we have
02:05enough of what we have, and can we reuse what we already have?
02:12French artist Miguel Chevalier reimagines nature through digital art. Extranatural is
02:19a virtual garden that evolves using generative algorithms, interacting with visitors as they
02:26draw near.
02:28And it's sort of homage of Monet. You know, Monet tried to catch the notion of the time.
02:35He worked with the notion of the light, and here we are in the same spirit, but we have
02:40something where you can have thousands of thousands of variations.
02:47Flowers Flora in Contemporary Art and Culture runs at London's Archie Gallery until the
02:535th of May.