Every other summer in Brussels, a small army of volunteers carefully places thousands of colorful begonias across the Grand Place to form a magnificent Flower Carpet. The city's central square (a UNESCO World Heritage site) has hosted the event since 1971. Each year, designers and landscapers come together to choose a theme and create an enormous template to be placed upon the cobblestones. These guiding lines are then filled with grass, bark, and thousands of begonias. Belgium produces 35 million begonia bulbs each year in a range of colors and shades. Using the begonia flower as a medium for the Flower Carpet gives the work a distinctly Belgian flair.
Though the flowers in each carpet only last four days, filmmaker Joerg Daiber created a stunning time-lapse film of the 2018 Flower Carpet from template to finished masterpiece. Daiber, a founder of the production company Spoonfilm in Berlin, recorded the festivities from the tops of several buildings surrounding the Grand Place. With vivid colors, high definition, and a tilt-shift effect, the Flower Tapestry takes center stage. Volunteers scurry like miniature ants and the surrounding historic buildings look like doll houses. Daiber's enchanting “miniaturizing” effect can be seen in his other videos documenting beautiful sites around the world, published on his channel Little Big World.
While the Flower Carpet scheduled for this summer must be postponed, Daiber's work preserves the 2018 tapestry until a new carpet can be created once again. The 2018 theme, “Guanajuato, Cultural Pride of Mexico,” honors the Mexican city of Guanajuato which similarly creates ephemeral tapestries of sawdust in the city streets.
Scroll down to see the building of the Flower Carpet and take a closer look at this incredible work of floral art through Daiber's video.
Volunteers gathered to assemble thousands of begonia flowers into intricate designs for an annual tradition in Brussels.
In 2018, the ritual Flower Carpet was recorded from start to finish by filmmaker Joerg Daiber.
The theme honored a city in Mexico which has a “carpet” creation tradition using sawdust.
Watch Joerg Daiber's beautiful video of the construction of the Brussels Flower Carpet:
Joerg Daiber: Website | YouTube | Facebook | Twitter
My Modern Met granted permission to feature photos by Joerg Daiber.
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