Ikebana is a momentary art form, a fleeting art, which takes inspiration from our natural surroundings. It is created by ‘feeling’ the botanical energy around us.

Join this Ikebana workshop with Robyn Bascand and Mary Fulton at Sir Miles Warren Gallery to tune into the site's famous garden and architecture while learning the fundamentals of this craft.

This event is part of Pondside, an event series hosted at Objectspace’s Ōtautahi satellite space during Living Room, an exhibition drawing on our personal and cultural associations with the objects and architecture of daily life.

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What is the allure of ikebana?

Simply, it is learning composition and 3D design by studying the forms in our environment - space, mass, lines, angles, colour.

But it isn’t only these things that are unique to ikebana, while creating an arrangement the artist is immersed in, almost lost in the moment, while working with materials that have extraordinary and transitory beauty.

Within the prescribed rules, there is a spontaneous, joyful connection to art. This is an art form that values individuality, is accessible to all and celebrates personal aesthetic.

Refined over centuries, ikebana art creates a beautiful gift to the observer.

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After 4 years of study Robyn Bascand received her ikebana teachers' diploma in 2006, learning under a Sogetsu ikebana master with nearly 40 years’ experience. “I run an interior design business and was searching for some professional development to better understand spatial design. It was the Sogetsu School’s avant garde approach to composition, balance and rules of proportion that inspired me to study and now teach.” Robyn has lead workshops and along with other members of the Christchurch Sogetsu Branch contributed to exhibitions in Christchurch and Kurashiki, Japan. The Sogetsu School Headquarters in Tokyo gave Robyn the name of Shunzan, meaning ‘Mountain in Springtime’.

In 2014 Mary Fulton went to a memorial ikebana exhibition by the Christchurch Sogetsu Branch for Japanese students who lost their lives in the Christchurch earthquake. “I had never seen ikebana art before and was in awe of the beauty and the way the art form honoured the tragic event.” Thus began her ikebana study and she has now completed the formal curriculum obtaining her Sogetsu Teachers diploma. The Sogetsu School Headquarters in Tokyo gave Mary the name of Kako meaning ‘Summer Rainbow’.