The Flora Floral Art Festival will celebrate its fourth edition in mid-October, coinciding with one of the weekends when the Córdoba City Council plans to open the Autumn Courtyards. A particularly flowery October is expected in the city, which already held a courtyard festival in the first half of 2020.
Details of the fourth edition of Flora are slowly emerging. Its director, María Van den Eynde, has been in Córdoba this week working on the organization and met with this newspaper to discuss the preparations for an event that will feature the same number of floral installations as in 2019.
“There will be five floral installations, plus one non-competitive installation at the Andalusian Center for Contemporary Creation (C3A),” explained the director of Flora, adding that it will be an edition featuring European artists, thus limiting the potential impact of Covid on the artists’ travel to Córdoba.
In this regard, Van den Eynde also specified that, of the five floral artists or collectives competing in Flora 2021, four will be established artists, while the fifth will be chosen through an open call for emerging European floral artists and collectives, entitled Patio Revelación (Revelation Courtyard). A jury will select the winning proposal, which will then compete against the four established artists.
“We strive to bring the best floral art to Córdoba, but we firmly believe that we must also be able to cultivate talent,” explained the director of Flora, who indicated that some spaces from previous editions will be featured again this year, given that Flora has already offered 19 installations in the last three editions.
Furthermore, the program of parallel activities throughout the festival will be revived and expanded this year, aiming to enhance Flora’s presence in the city and increase overnight stays. “Growing doesn’t mean having more installations, but rather expanding horizontally and leaving a deeper impression,” says Van den Eynde, who points out that Flora’s installations can be seen in three or four hours, so the goal is to encourage people to stay for several days.
To this end, a program of activities is being developed that will include workshops and lectures on floral art and botany. Flora will also forge connections with the open patios of Córdoba. “We need to generate more critical mass around floral art to continue maintaining Córdoba’s position as a world-renowned reference point,” reflects the festival director, who acknowledges that they are striving “to make the festival more than just the installations.”
Regarding the impact of Covid on visits to the installations, she has indicated that, fortunately for everyone, Flora takes place in open spaces, so a specific protocol will be developed to control capacity. In her opinion, this will prevent “the typical Flora image” of endless queues, which will not be the case this year. It will be sought, and it could be mitigated by promoting something that has already been done in previous editions, which is to encourage visits with prior reservation.
