Pastoral Echoes in Little Paris

It all started with the festival's theme – Origins. We were asked to reinterpret a craft and bring it into the contemporary world through flowers. As Bucharest natives, we wanted our participation to speak about where we come from and the identity of the city that inspires us every day.

We thus turned to old Bucharest, to the stories and occupations that contributed to its formation. We didn't just want a spectacular floral installation, but a story that speaks of roots, of people, and of the connection between past and present. This is how the concept "Pastoral Echoes in Little Paris" was born.

Pastoral Echoes in Little Paris does not aim to faithfully reconstruct a vanished world, but to reinterpret it through a contemporary artistic language, where flowers, color, and oversized elements transform memory into a visual experience

The flock is the heart of the project. The choice of sheep was not random. We were inspired by the legend of Bucur, the shepherd who is said to have given Bucharest its name, and we wanted to bring this story into an artistic and contemporary form.

At the same time, we envisioned the visual impact of oversized sheep, made entirely of flowers. We didn't want a realistic reproduction of the pastoral world, but a poetic and spectacular reinterpretation, where color, volume, and expressiveness would transform traditional elements into true characters.

We deliberately chose colorful and unusual sheep because they represent the artistic prop and freedom component of the installation. If crafts and history provide the project's roots, these floral characters are its visual signature – a bridge between heritage and imagination.

Each sheep has its own personality, its own floral palette, and its own story. Together they form a symbolic flock, a floral reinterpretation of a pastoral universe that once lay at the foundation of this place's life and identity.

The initial sketches didn't start with sheep, but with fur coats. We were fascinated by the history of old furrier workshops and shops that were part of Bucharest's life, especially in the Lipscani area. From this, the idea was born to transform sheep's wool into a craft object and then into an artistic object.

Floral fur coats represent the connection between raw material and creation, between nature and human hands. The distaff complements this story and recalls the traditional occupations that have accompanied generations. Together, these elements tell a story of work, skill, and transformation.

Pastoral Echoes in Little Paris is our way of bringing the Bucharest of yesteryear into the heart of today's city. It is a meeting between the pastoral world and urban energy, between tradition and contemporaneity.

Through flowers, plants, and handmade structures, we wanted to build an artistic representation of what we truly are: people who respect their origins but choose to reinterpret them in a new language. For us, this project is a story about past and future, about memory and creativity, about the beauty of things made with care, and about how flowers can tell stories that transcend generations.