CJ Hendry’s wildly successful Flower Market is in town, with JuJu World to follow

[SINGAPORE] Who doesn’t like flowers?

They’re colourful, cheerful and they brighten up any room. Now, imagine tens of thousands of them filling a large gallery – except they’re plush, so they never die on you.

This is Flower Market, a public installation by New York-based Australian contemporary artist Catherine Jenna Hendry – better known as CJ Hendry – that’s making its South-east Asian debut in Singapore this week.

Hendry, a self-taught artist who dropped out of university twice (from studying architecture and finance), is known for her hyper-realistic drawings of everyday objects.

But she has also gone on to stage large-scale, immersive art installations where visitor interaction is part of the experience – jumping on bouncy castles that look like the walls of a psych ward to get to her Rorschach test-like artwork, playing with falling white confetti in a giant “snow globe”, and trying out motel-style keys on hundreds of padlocks to see if one can successfully be opened.

At Flower Market, you’re invited to wander among rows of plush blooms in vibrant colours, feel the comforting softness of their fabrics, and select stalks to make your own bouquet.

It is a clever arrangement – equal parts an approachable art form and a pop-up where visitors can buy pieces of “works” to take home.

The consumer in you is likely to spend more than you intend to, but one could argue that the act of slowly browsing and picking flowers to form one’s idea of a beautiful bunch is a form of artistic expression in itself.

And it is fun. There are more than 30 varieties of plush flowers on display, including eight designed exclusively for the Singapore staging.

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Examples are the city-state’s national flower, the Papilionanthe Miss Joaquim, the Raffles’ Pitcher Plant and the Singapore Ginger Flower.

Entry is free and every visitor receives one complimentary stalk, with additional ones at S$7 each.

A warning, though: Hours-long queues have formed everywhere that Flower Market has appeared since 2024 – New York, Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi and Sydney. Expect the same here, where pre-registration slots have all been taken up and walk-ins are welcome.

In a double bill, Flower Market will soon be followed by JuJu World, a ticketed event from Jun 20 to Jul 18.

JuJu is Hendry’s first collectible toy series, and may remind you of My Melody – the cute rabbit character from Japanese company Sanrio, who wears a flower on her pink hood.

Hendry’s version, however, has the bunny’s ears flopping down and the flower covering an eye instead.

Described as the world’s first interactive inflatable experience around the character, JuJu World will see the rabbit released in a new colourway – yellow. Limited, large-sized JuJus will also be made exclusively for the Singapore activation only.

More details will be released soon, but, like Flower Market, you can expect JuJu World to be brightly hued, playful and joyful.

After all, there’s “not enough whimsy in the world”, Hendry has said. “It’s okay to walk through something and just enjoy it and have a good time.”

With so much doom and gloom in the world these days, that’s not a bad idea at all.

Flower Market is open to the public 9 am to 9 pm daily (last entry 8 pm) from Jun 10 to 14, in IMBA Theatre at Gardens by the Bay