Art Editions is iida’s effort to fuse art and the mobile phone. Our next collaborator in this project is Makoto Azuma, the flower artist who has generated a sense of surprise and amazement among all age groups in his plant-inspired “Botanical Sculpture.” Azuma’s artwork proposes to fuse lifestyle with flowers by combining the ever-portable mobile phone with plant life. Plants may be the very thing we unconsciously but earnestly seek out in our hectic, ever-changing everyday lives.
However, live plants are not the only way for you to experience greenery. What if the mobile phone could be made into a tool that enables you to feel and love plants? Based on that idea, this art product represents a unique style that allows you to engraft an array of exquisitely made plant parts as a base for your phone. These plants include the baobabu tree, cherry blossoms, rafflesia, and luminous moss, ranging from seasonal flowering plants to the rarest plants found throughout the world. As you incorporate this array of plant parts into your handset, you will be able to interact with them as though you were gazing at a botanical picture book. As you use your mobile phone, your awareness of plants will increase, allowing plants to become evermore rooted in your heart, and eventually linking you to a greater awareness of the environment. It may be that such an art product as this harbors a power that can even affect our entire ecological cycle.
<Plants Used>
Jade vine, banana, ananasu, Venus flytrap, Wollemi pine, Buddha’s hand citron, Heliconia rostrata Lobster claw, Bat orchid, Moth orchid
Japanese White Pine, Aristolochia gigantean, Amanita pantherina, King Protea, Gourd, Medinilla magnifica, Puya raimondii, Titan arum, Giant water lilly, Tree tumbo, Golden barrel cactus, Zenmai Japanese royal fern, String of pearls, Rafflesia, Amaryllis, Nepenthes Coccinea, Goblin gold, Traveller’s Tree, Lady’s Slipper, Baobab, Agave attenuate, Passion flower, Tillandsia xerographica, Iceland Poppy, Mountain Cherry, Red pitcher plant, Tiger Lilly, Giant rhubarb, Kinmeichiku, lawn grass, Flamingo lily
Commercialization has yet to be determined.
Azuma was born in Fukuoka in 1976. He has managed a flower shop since 2002 and currently runs a high-end flower shop called JARDINS des FLEURS in Minami Aoyama, Tokyo. He has also developed a number of energetic projects in Japan as a flower artist. In 2005, Azuma held exhibits abroad in New York, Paris, and Germany. He has been very active since 2009 in a variety of plant-related fields, launching an experimental plant group (“Makoto Azuma Flower and Plant Research Group”) that explores the potential of plants. All of Azuma’s activities are connected by a desire to discover the most mysterious forms of flowers and plants, and to express those forms by elevating them to an aesthetic level, thereby enhancing their value.
www.azumamakoto.com
