The Ikebana Sogetsu Annual Exhibit Manila Branch opened over the weekend at SM Aura’s Upper Ground Atrium, with members of the local chapter presenting arrangements that explored Contrast in Nature: Fresh & Dried from Sept. 19 to Sept. 21.
The exhibit invited members of the Sogetsu school in Manila to blend tradition with self-expression, showing how flower arrangement can carry personal stories as well as artistry.
For Gina Onda, the past president of Ikenobo Manila, who has studied Ikebana for years, her work was both a showcase of rare materials and a reflection of memory. Her arrangement, titled The Way We Were, featured the golden chain tree, a plant she described as “very rare here in the Philippines.”
“When you have the arrangement or exhibit like this, you must use a rare, very special flower that you cannot just get anywhere,” Onda said, adding that she sometimes relies on gardeners to climb trees for branches.
She said Ikebana is most powerful when it reflects joy.
“Sometimes, if you’re so emotional that day, you need to express it through your arrangement. Of course, not a sad one—it must be a happy one. Because flowers are about friendship, and people can feel that,” she continued.
Meanwhile, architect Lora Rivera, who has been with the Sogetsu Manila Branch for only two and a half years, approached her exhibit entry with the discipline of her profession. Using old cardboard cut into squares, dried materials, and ping pong balls, she built a strikingly geometric piece.
“I had to incorporate something of myself, which is to put some geometric patterns here,” Rivera explained.
The architect also said she deliberately avoids glue, letting her materials hold each other up, so each arrangement changes with every assembly.
For her, Ikebana also reflects sustainability.
“Don’t throw anything away. Dried materials are used, scrap materials are used. Even secondhand vases from surplus shops,” she added.
For Neny Regino, Ikebana began as a class she joined at her late husband’s encouragement before the pandemic.
“I was reluctant because I wasn’t sure if I was creative. He paid for my first class,” she recalled. A year later, her husband passed away, leaving her with the practice he had inspired her to try.
Her arrangement, Colors of My Life, turned into a tribute to him.
“This is sadness, the end of life with the dried parts. But the yellow ones, when you pass on, you create a new life. This is my new life,” she said.
Regino finds the process therapeutic, especially during moments of loneliness.
“When I feel so down, I go into a pocket garden, and if I see a flower or a leaf, I make an arrangement. You feel so lucky that you are alive,” Regino continued.
Though they come from different backgrounds, for Gina Onda, Lora Rivera, and Neny Regino, Ikebana extends beyond aesthetics—it is therapy, a way of storytelling, and a reflection of the self.
