Look here, Mommy, it’s a racing track!

I had Friday off (because I had worked on Women’s Day… shameful!), so I dashed off, in great excitement, to see the Willem Boshoff installation at Kirstenbosch. After some walking around, I stumbled across neat rows of lower-to-the-ground-than-expected white canvas flowers. Each craft-fully tied down with a red cup and stuck in the ground with white PVC pipe stems. “I have chosen red for the cups as red is the colour for threatened species - the red data list. Red is also the colour of the poppies in the memorial fields of Flanders,” says Mr. Boshoff. He spent 25 years finding 15000 endangered plant species. The botanical and every vernacular name of each plant is printed on the canvas cloth. Though the effect is impressive and the concept brilliant, you shouldn‘t expect to be amused for hours. Pack your picnic basket or hiking boots and of course your camera.

(Blissfully unaware of the greater meaning behind the work, two young boys were using the two columns made by the negative spaces between the flower boxes as “racing tracks”. Sweet.)