BREAKING VASES IS an occupational hazard for florists, but for Wagner Kreusch it’s also a source of inspiration. The Brazilian-born, London-based botanical artist collects ceramics from makers around the world and when one of them accidentally slips through his fingers, he saves the fragments, reconfiguring the shards on the floor of his studio to look like the vessel has just toppled over, and arranges flowers (he prefers wild flora such as amaranth and mimosa) amid the chaos. Most recently, Kreusch, a certified ikebana instructor, transplanted a cluster of foraged roadside marigolds, root systems intact, and placed them amid a half-smashed terra-cotta garden pot he found at a market in Porto, Portugal. “They looked like they broke the vase to free themselves,” he says of the unruly cluster of yellow blooms. The gravitational pull is both literal and metaphorical; by building on the floor, they’re at once returning flowers to the earth (if only symbolically) and repositioning a flower arrangement’s hierarchy in a given room — these are designs that demand space, that shift the balance of focus from the mantel or dining room table, that make life a little inconvenient for the occupants.

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Persons: Wagner Kreusch it’s, “, ”, you’re Locations: Brazilian, London, Porto, Portugal, they’re