Flower Festival of the Year and a Little Bit More about Ilona OoStenveld

- Caroline Maria Dsouza

Everyone knows about the grand movie festival ‘DIFF’ conducted by Dubai every year, which is nothing other than The Dubai International Film Festival.

However, when you take something like DIFF and infuse it with nature and talent instead of cinema rolls, you get what is called the Dubai International Flower Festival.

Al Lokrits International LLC conducted the Dubai International Flower Festival from the 22nd to the 24th of February 2018. This festival showcased floral artistry done by both local based as well as international artists. A competition was conducted which required the enrolled artist to create their pieces of floral art at the given venue within a certain amount of time. This was then judged by established and renowned artists including, Thomas De Bruyne, a floral designer from Belgium, Marios Vallianos, an experienced floral designer from Greece and Christi Lopez from the USA.

The competition had eight participants from different parts of the world. These participants included Arnold Salvador and Rex Tarubal from the UAE, Van Laer Soren from Belgium, Tamas Mezoffy from Hungary, Alex Choi from South Korea, Tomasz Max Kuczynki from Poland, Thai Thomas Mai Van from France, and Ilona OoStenveld from the Netherlands.

The first place was secured by Van Laer Soren, with Tamas Mezoffy and Alex Choi in second and third positions respectively.

The winners and participants were awarded in an award ceremony conducted on the same evening of the competition.

Move your curser over the images to view them

Photographs by - Caroline Dsouza

The judging was a cohesive decision taken by the jury members and the technical committee. The jury consisted of Marios Vallianos (Chairman of the Jury), Thomas De Bruyne, and Juhi M. Gidwani.

The Technical Committee consisted of Christi Lopez (President of the technical committee), Dr Yuvaraj Ramchandran, and Mohamed Naseer.

The flower show was conducted on day two of the festival which was the 23rd of February 2018. This show experienced live demonstrations and tutorials from some of the competing artists. One of these artists was Ilona Oostenveld from the Netherlands. Ilona is a thirty-five-year-old, mother of two, freelance florist as well as a floristry teacher for a degree in school in Holland.

Photographs by - Caroline Dsouza

The Artistic Culture got the chance to know a little bit more about Ilona, from where it began to how floristry is accepted in the Netherlands. “I always wanted to be an artist, ever since I was a kid. Every time someone asked me what I wanted to be, I knew I wanted to do something with flowers,” says the talented florist on where it all began.

When asked about her opinion on the way people still tend to look down on artists, in spite of it being such a creative field, in relation to other occupations like business or marketing, she says, “I have never experienced that, In Holland being an artist or a floral artist all around the world, I have never experienced anyone to look down on me.”

To all the young artists out there who are barred from pursuing art as a career because of the societies they come from, Ilona believes that one should always listen to their heart because what’s in their heart makes them happy. She says, “keep listening to yourselves and not to everybody around you.”