HD

color, sound, 17 minutes

For Paradys, Van Lieshout resided in Oranjewoud in Friesland -a province in the north of The Netherlands- for four months, to develop a work especially for this location. Oranjewoud (Orange woods) was the location for Dutch Royals (with the surname Oranje/Orange) to live.  Van Lieshout decided to work on a floral mosaic, a colourful sea of flowers. This kind of mosaic is ‘paradise’, the extreme of ‘beauty’, but on his view, this type of mosaic is also “the lamest kind of tourism and city promotion”.

The film work ‘Flower of Arms’ depicts the search for the perfect spot for this mosaic through a documentary style, performance and stop motion animations. It intertwines Royal themes with Frysian themes such as the famous socialist reformer and anti-royalist Domela Nieuwenhuis, floral designs with conversations with several local people. Final permission for the flower mosaic came after months and was only possible five kilometres outside Oranjewoud, on the roof of an underground parking garage in the centre of Heerenveen.