The Encyclopedia of Flowers III

"The Encyclopedia of Flowers III" is the third volume of Azuma Makoto and Shunsuke Shiinoki's running record of the flower market. By the time it appeared, the series had sold some 30,000 copies.

Seigensha published this 484-page paperback in Japan in 2016. It is organized into seven chapters, the most the series had used to date. The first two volumes stayed close to the flowers themselves. This one widens its frame: some images now use the earth itself as backdrop, following projects that took Azuma and Shiinoki's work well beyond the studio. It keeps the pair's method of pairing an unblinking eye for a flower's life and death with the human desires that drive people to grow, buy, and arrange them.

Azuma and Shiinoki have worked together since 2000, when they opened the Tokyo flower shop Jardins des Fleurs. They founded the experimental collective AMKK in 2009. Azuma's Botanical Sculpture installations have been shown in cities including New York and Paris. The pair's continuing series of large-scale flower projects grew out of the same close observation that shapes this book.