Flowers aren’t normally associated with punk, but Makoto Azuma’s botanical disruptor team Azuma Makoto Kaju Kenkyusho (AMKK) has been working to uproot such notions.
These punk florists have shot flowers into space, blasted their creations with fireworks and had pro-wrestlers tackle flower arrangements in a ring. AMKK also creates jaw-dropping botanical sculptures in a range of unnatural places, from suspending a palm tree in a desert in the United States to submerging massive floral artworks deep underwater, off the Okinawan island of Ishigaki. Almost every year since 2021 (skipping only 2022), the team freezes flowers in the remote parts of Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost prefecture, solidifying them into icy sculptures, their petals turned into blurry rainbows beneath the surface.
In the latest exhibition, “X-Ray Flowers,” which takes place in Kyoto through March 30, AMKK takes a closer look at its muse and material, peeking past the outer veneer of plants with X-rays and CT scans.
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