Floral design competition 'Out of the Vase' to be launched at Trade Fair

The European premier of ‘Out of the Vase’ will take place on 4 and 5 November 2015 at the Aalsmeer Trade Fair (Netherlands). This floral design competition brings together students from all over the world of different artistic disciplines with no prior experience in the art of floral design. This talent event is organised by the Israeli flower company, AVIV Flower and Dutch flower auction FloraHolland. AVIV exports fresh flowers, herbs, fruit and vegetables to customers around the world.

The goal for the event is to create a new dialog in the floral business environment about how to renew some of the floral design concepts to appeal to a younger generation and increase their usage of floral products.

Initiative
The idea for ‘Out of the Vase’ came from a quest by Moshe Peretz, CEO of AVIV, to promote quality flowers of the Harmonie brand from Israel. Harmonie is created as AVIV’s answer to the needs of buyers in the new digital era where buyers need more information about the growers, quality assurance and standardization among suppliers.

Moshe Peretz wants to provoke inspiration to create new and innovative products that were not seen before, by enabling young and talented students to think ‘Out of the Vase’. The pilot of ‘Out of the Vase’, which was held for the first time in 2013, was an immediate success. It was then also decided to organise an international competition at FloraHolland.

Creativity
The principle of the ‘Out of the Vase’ competition is simple. Talented art students from around the world will apply their talents to flowers. Not prejudiced by knowledge of floral arrangements, they will give free rein to their creativity and come up with surprising, innovative floral work. The students are coming from different artistic disciplines such as architecture, design, jewellery, fashion and textile. During ‘Out of the Vase’ they will work with flowers of the Israeli Harmonie brand and flowers of Dutch growers.

Reality show
The presentation and atmosphere of ‘Out of the Vase’ is a unique competition format. The process is similar to the TV format of a live reality show: bustling, with all kinds of things happening simultaneously. The contestants have no prior knowledge of their assignments which are unexpected and subject to time limits.
To take a glimpse behind the scenes, Lucas Vos, general manager of the flower auction, FloraHolland, will on Thursday morning present the students with the assignment ‘Together’, whereby the growers and buyers serve as floral assistants to the students. The work of the students will be judged primarily for its creative content. The winner receives a prize of 10,000 dollars.

On Friday, November 6th the students works of art will be presented at stand 1.9 of Aviv Flower at the FloraHolland Trade Fair.