Kew Orchid Festival: Celebrate the colour of Colombia were the bright and vibrant colours needed to brighten up a typically grey day in London.
By Rhea Christopher
Standing in the rain for half hour is not the best experience just before lunch time during a weekday at Kew Gardens. However, there to seemed to be a fuss about these common house flowers: orchids. In particular, the Colombian type.
It’s easy to joke about the flowers being smuggled in via an El Capo type mafia boss and to laugh about the kind of journey these orchids could have had. This exhibition couldn’t be further from this and the beautiful essence of Colombian culture truly shone through.
Carolina Tenorio, 26, a London-native with Colombian heritage who was at the exhibition said that she “loved the representation outside of what the country is known for. Not everyone knows about our horticulture and the culture that the country has to offer.” This is exactly what enhanced the exhibition from expecting common house plants to being exposed to the variety of species there are.
It was easy to feel like a shadow in the presence of such delicate flora which together with the cacti, that were mainly dressed up in traditional clothing, transported you to a tropical rainforest. Hint: Smokers beware. The humidity made me suffer but did wonders for my chest afterwards.
The exhibition took place in the gardens’ Princess of Wales Conservatory and it is one of those buildings that ends up being larger than it seems. The ins ands outs and labyrinth like layout suited the idea of a rainforest perfectly. Adults, as well as children, had fun worming their way through the spaces and then suddenly stopping because they’ve found another orchid to mesmerise over.
Elisa Biondi, who is the supervisor at the conservatory and who led the design and creation of the festival said, “Kew has held an orchid festival in one guise or another for the past 24 years and it is one of our most important events of the year…They are one of the largest flowering plant families with around 25,000 different species – there’s even around 50 orchids that are native to the UK!”
What really made this festival stand out though was how it captured Colombia. Biondi also said, “We had to think of how we could capture the essence of Colombia through orchids and come up with design ideas. Colombia is a very colourful, fun and a generally inspiring country.” Clearly they succeeded with the likes of Carolina Tenorio impressed on how it represented her homeland. “I think the country was represented well, in terms of educating people about the vast amount of orchids and animals that are native to Colombia.”
With displays around the conservatory educating you on Colombia and the orchids, with fairytale arches covered in flowers, little tiny pods that looked like fairy homes that turned out to be more orchids and cacti dressed up to look like a groom and bride on their wedding day, ready for a fiesta. It was a buzz of excitement and brought spring in with a burst of colour and vigour.
