A multiple event is taking place in the beautiful courtyard gardens of the Acanthus Blue Hotel in Garitsa Bay, Corfu Town.
Art on the Easel- Artist Lesley Beaupré will add the “Earth” of a Corfu garden to our event’s mix of “Light and Water”. But don’t expect simple botanical illustrations in this series of new works created with the Garden Festival in mind. Beaupré is known for her colourful, often whimsical, sometimes mystical portrayal of her world and its creatures. Five years ago her world became a stremma of land in central Corfu, where amongst its singing, squeaking and slithering creatures are the ghosts of donkeys, some peculiar cats and a little black dog. Soil was added to the paint under her fingernails, seeds to her palette, a hoe and fork to her toolkit of brushes, a potential food forest to her portfolio. “Ah” she says, “the Art of Gardening.
Art meeting Plants - Aliki Kakoulidou and Dimitra Vasilakou, founders of M2P Design, Athens, (formerly metoo), will be showcasing the results of their workshops held in the preceding days, where participants will have been inspired by their interest in cultural research and the creation of patterns and characters inspired by Greek folk art, and applying them to quotidian objects.
M2P’s work is all about the “synergies we create, the procedures and materials we use, the footprint we leave on the environment and society. It’s about repurposing the past and making it futureproof. It’s about bringing together timeless, traditional imagery, and a modern aesthetic”. They realise this new vision by combining graphics, design and modern technology with traditional production methods. Their objective is to revive the various motifs found in Greek culture through a contemporary viewpoint and to incorporate them into everyday life.
On show also will be their innovative design ideas for covering plant pots and using fabric for vases, some created in collaboration with the Benaki Museum in Athens.
Plants – Care and Couture: Hear Spiros Mamalos talk about indoor plants and quite possibly those that are outside too. Spiros to those who don’t already know him, is responsible for numerous new gardens in Corfu, the go-to of property developers who need an expert on Mediterranean planting and the intrigues of post-build mayhem. With his brother Dimitri he also runs the huge Biogarden Mamalos nurseries at Halikounas … where you can also buy Bio fruit and vegetables from their dedicated shop.
A Question of Light – David Zimos from CorfuElectric is not only a well-known electrician in Corfu but makes custom garden lighting structures too. He will be welcoming questions about ways to be more creative in both the positioning and form of lighting in and around plants whether inside, outside or on a balcony.
Watering in today’s environmentally conscious world - Kevork Voskeritchian from IHAS.gr (Intelligent Home Automation Systems) will be demonstrating how we can be intelligent about irrigation, how technology can help the watering of gardens to be done in a more sustainable and automated way using sensor-driven rather than timer-driven controls. How we can incorporate any number of other variants such as weather forecasts and special plant requirements to use water in the best way possible.
The Venue: The Acanthus Blue is a perfect space to welcome you. Wondrous, sculptural, blown glass lanterns light the seating spaces, the sound of trickling water features add to the calm, and carefully curated plants are cleverly lit with bespoke lamps to enhance and define their forms. Even its name is perfect for a Garden Festival venue, the acanthus leaf being long-used in Greek civilisation as a decorative motif and the source of inspiration for the sculptor Callimachus, who created the Corinthian capital. We are very grateful to the Acanthus Blue for letting us use this wonderful space.
Drinks will be available for sale with complimentary snacks and the hotel has generously committed to donate 20% of all proceeds to the festival charity: Melissa.
