Floral artists celebrate spring.

Byline: Faiza Ilyas

KARACHI -- How flowers can be expressive, meaningful, and even enhance the power of poetry is aptly demonstrated at the Sogetsu Ikebana Flower Exhibition, which opened on Friday at a local mall.

Set on the theme 'Bahaar Aai' (Spring has come), the event is a special treat for everyone; it lends colour to words, generates interest in ordinary material that can be turned into a thing of beauty with little effort and brings one closer to nature.

'It's all about spring. The show is unique in the sense that it's the first time that our students have attempted to depict the beauty in a certain piece of poetry through their floral exhibits,' said Nafisa Tapal, director of the Indus Sogetsu Study Group, which has put up the event at LuckyOne Mall.

All flowers and plants used in the show were locally grown by Pakistan Bloom, a non-profit entity dedicated to promoting local growers, also collaborating with the group, she added.

Explaining why Sogetsu School was chosen to promote Ikebana, Tapal said it's the most modern form of the Japanese floral art that anyone could learn anytime, anywhere and using any material.

'While we follow the basic Ikebana theme of creating more out of less, this style has no boundaries. You can see here exhibits made with a combination of fresh and dry plant materials as well as those prepared exclusively with stones and water.'

One has to commend...