Gardening

Reclaiming Floral Waste: New Gardening Practices from the Streets to Farms
花卉廢棄物回收：從街頭到小農場的新型園藝實踐（2016-2024）🌷

I am honored to design T-shirt graphics for a brand called "Yami Hanaya" in Japan. The brand's founder and floral artist, Alexander Julien, believes it is a pity that the flower industry often discards imperfect or deformed flowers. To challenge this norm, he created a series of works focusing on uniquely shaped plants. Each year, we promote a different plant, like the pitcher plant or aloe, which are rarely used in floral art. Together, we conceptualize T-shirt designs featuring these plants, presenting our work in both the fashion and plant design fields.

Regarding T-shirts dyed with discarded plants: Take tulips, for example. Rejected yellow tulips can produce a spectrum of colors through dyeing, from pale yellow and bright yellow to light brown and green-brown, enhancing people's perception of flowers from the inside out. As for the graphic design: I draw inspiration from the smooth, bright product photos on commercial shopping websites. By capturing and distorting these online images, I create a low-resolution, kitsch aesthetic that challenges commercial beauty standards. This aligns with Alexander Julien's vision of reviving deformed flowers. Thus, we embarked on a meaningful and intriguing five-year design collaboration.

我為在日本經營名為「闇花屋」的品牌設計Ｔ恤圖案，品牌負責人兼花卉藝術家 Alexander Julien 認為花卉產業中，時常需要將花形畸形、造型不完美的植物淘汰，是相當可惜又不珍重花朵的業內常態，因此他進行了一系列的作品，皆在關注於長相特殊的植物。他將豬籠草、蘆薈等，在花藝中鮮少使用的植物為主題，以一年推廣一種植物為進程，與我共同發想該植物的T恤設計，發表在時尚服飾與植栽設計的領域。

關於概念：以鬱金香為例，遭到淘汰的黃色鬱金香，從花瓣、花萼至葉子等部位，能透過染色而呈現出的光譜包括鵝黃色、淺黃色、明黃色、淺棕色、綠棕色等廣泛的色調，由內而外將人們對花朵的想像力提升至不同層次。

關於圖案設計：我以商業購物網頁中光滑、明亮的產品照片為啟發，藉由將網路圖片擷取、變形，製造出一種數位低畫質的媚俗美學，挑戰商業世界的審美標準，這與Alexander Julien先生想復甦畸形花卉的概念不謀而合，因此我們展開了連續五年，有趣且意義深刻的設計合作。

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T-shirt “Dream Match”(2024), designed by wen gum gum, produced by Alexander Julian.

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T-Shirt “Gardening”(2016), “Gardening-ll”(2017), “Tulip”(2017), “Nepenthes-ll”(2018), designed by wen gum gum, produced by Alexander Julian.

T-Shirt graphic “Nepenthes”(2016), “Gardening-ll”(2017), “Tulip”(2017), “Sakura Shinkansen”(2023) designed by wen gum gum, produced by Alexander Julian.

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"The first long-sleeved T-shirt dyed with waste flowers was dyed with discarded plants before they were put into the market. [...] I collected the discarded plants and brought them to the dyeing workshop to make "tulips" dyeing", "Nepenthes dyeing" and other waste plant flower materials, and then design patterns on them. For the design, I asked Duckcrow, a Taiwanese I met at an art book fair in Taipei, and Otachi, who designed for a large shoe manufacturer. Both have been great partners in translating my complex visualizations into complex forms, and I am really grateful to both of them. "-Julian

Regarding plant dyeing, during the production process, I saw that a single plant can produce a wide range of rich tones. It is really hard to imagine that Nepenthes can dye beautiful and light sage gray fabrics, or tulips: bright young yellow. And recently he is keen on posting rhinestones, he is really a master in material matching.

"Plants are unconditional beauty, so I don't want to make things that depend too much on them, so I'm careful how to eliminate the existence of that plant beauty. How to keep myself away from the pure beauty of plants, not decorative works." - Julian

In a way, our creative concepts coincide. The patterns on the clothing that appear in the interview text are partly from the design entrusted to me by Mr. Julian, and are generated through sketch communication and back-and-forth discussions. It was also the first time I heard about Mr. Julian's life background and profession, and I was a little shy to know so much.

In the process of cooperation, we also need to thank Taiwanese friend @teiyusya as a bridge of communication. We also have many cooperative exhibitions in progress this year, so stay tuned for June this year!

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「第一件用廢花染色的長袖 T 恤，是在植物被丟棄前，我先把它們收集起來帶到染坊。像是『鬱金香染』、『豬籠草染』等，都是利用這些被丟棄的花材染出來的。我再在上面設計圖案。
這部分的設計，我請了我在臺北的藝術書展上認識的臺灣人 Duckcrow（wen gum gum），以及為大型鞋廠設計的 Otachi 協助。
他們兩位一直是非常重要的夥伴，幫我把我那些複雜的視覺想像翻譯成具體形式。我真的非常感謝他們。」
— Julian

關於植物染，我在製作過程中發現：單一種植物就能染出極其豐富的色階。很難想像，豬籠草竟然可以染出輕盈、優雅的鼠尾草灰色，而鬱金香則呈現出明亮的青春黃。

「植物本身就是一種無條件的美，所以我不希望創作變得過度依賴它們。我會很小心地處理怎麼去『去除』植物本身的那種美感。我不希望做出的是裝飾性作品，而是要設法讓自己遠離那種『植物之美』。」
— Julian

某種程度上，我們的創作理念是有交集的。訪談中出現的衣服圖樣，有部分就是 Julian 委託我設計、經過草圖往返與溝通討論產出的作品。也是透過這篇訪談，我第一次比較完整地認識 Julian 的人生背景與專業領域，知道這麼多其實讓我有點害羞。

這段合作過程中，也非常感謝臺灣朋友 @teiyusya 作為溝通橋樑。我們今年還有不少共同展出正在籌備中。

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