PRACTICE

Rooted in Sogetsu Ikebana philosophy, Leung's practice expands into an interdisciplinary language of performance, installation, and spatial intervention. She approaches Ikebana as a living and temporal process through which relationships between body, material, memory, and environment are continuously shaped and transformed.

Leung works with botanical matter, found objects, sound, movement, and site-responsive environments to create ephemeral installations and performances that explore relationship between urban and natural systems. Organic materials, votive structures, found objects, and architectural space are composed into temporary arrangements that hover between cultivation and decay, ritual and improvisation.

Her performative Ikebana emerge as living archives of collective presence. These transient environments invite audiences to encounter vulnerability, transformation, and interconnection as unfolding spatial experiences. For Leung, the most profound expression often resides in what remains hidden.

Hedy Leung's 'Assemble' Ikebana performance at HIAP Helsinki presented by PF25 cultural projectsHedy Leung's 'Assemble' Ikebana performance at HIAP Helsinki presented by PF25 cultural projects
Hedy Leung's 'SWOOSH! POKE! POW! OOF!' Ikebana performance at Open Hand Open Space, ReadingHedy Leung's 'SWOOSH! POKE! POW! OOF!' Ikebana performance at Open Hand Open Space, Reading
Hedy Leung’s ‘Ethnobotanic Resonance’ Ikebana performance at London Metropolitan UniversityHedy Leung’s ‘Ethnobotanic Resonance’ Ikebana performance at London Metropolitan University
Hedy Leung's 'Sogetsu Ikebana 3 x 7 = 21' performance-installation at Atelier Mondial BaselHedy Leung's 'Sogetsu Ikebana 3 x 7 = 21' performance-installation at Atelier Mondial Basel
Hedy Leung 'Starlit Ethnobotanical Wonders' Ikebana performance at Ma UMI residencies Ishigaki JapanHedy Leung 'Starlit Ethnobotanical Wonders' Ikebana performance at Ma UMI residencies Ishigaki Japan
Digital collage 'Meet you at midnight', part of the Fractured Ephemera series, showcasing fluid and layered Ikebana elementsDigital collage 'Meet you at midnight', part of the Fractured Ephemera series, showcasing fluid and layered Ikebana elements
Inspired by nature’s palettes, exploring fluidity and balance in the Sogetsu Ikebana artInspired by nature’s palettes, exploring fluidity and balance in the Sogetsu Ikebana art
Hedy Leung's '202200080026' Ikebana performance-installation at E-werk FreiburgHedy Leung's '202200080026' Ikebana performance-installation at E-werk Freiburg
Hedy Leung's 'Menhir Tapestry 1' performance at Radio X 25th anniversary X_ARTS FestivalHedy Leung's 'Menhir Tapestry 1' performance at Radio X 25th anniversary X_ARTS Festival
Ikebana International London Annual ExhibitionIkebana International London Annual Exhibition
current situation ikebana performance at Crossbreeds Cracks Currents PF25 Dornach Extension Exhibitioncurrent situation ikebana performance at Crossbreeds Cracks Currents PF25 Dornach Extension Exhibition
choreographic honey once veiled in timechoreographic honey once veiled in time
Participants engaging in a community workshop during the 'Starlit Ethnobotanical Wonders' project at Ma Umi ResidenciesParticipants engaging in a community workshop during the 'Starlit Ethnobotanical Wonders' project at Ma Umi Residencies

Choreographic Honey, once veiled in time

Performance, King's College London, 2026

A site-specific Ikebana performance in the College Chapel, drawing on the waggle dance of bees as an embodied language of care and collective restoration. Using rescued clay vessels, recycled church candle wax, and preserved botanical matter, the work proposes healing as a slow, choreographed process of unveiling — layer by layer, gesture by gesture.

Assemble

Performance, HIAP, Suomenlinna, 2024

A performative Ikebana performance assembling reclaimed and found materials into live composition, brought together into a new collective narrative. The act of assembling becomes a space for transformation and togetherness: disparate fragments, like displaced thoughts, merging into a momentary whole.

Current Situation

Performance, PF25 cultural projects Dornach Atelier, 2025

A performative Ikebana installation merging sound, olfactory elements, and salvaged materials — cables from Hong Kong, reclaimed planks and green waste from Dornach — to channel invisible currents of energy and communication across distance. Cracks are not ruptures but openings: the work holds the fragile balance between form and flow, orientation and drift.

Menhir Tapestry 1

Performance, TransBona Halle, Basel, 2023

A performative Ikebana installation weaving together objects and recorded blessings collected from participants, drawing on the menhir as an ancient conduit of collective energy and shared memory. Natural materials, cultural fragments, and voices are composed into a living tapestry, connecting diverse traditions, imaginaries, and communities through a single spatial act.

SWOOSH! POKE! POW! OOF!

Performance, Open Hand Open Space, Reading, 2025

A bodily Ikebana performance in which thorns, needles become pathways through fear, pain, and discomfort toward resilience. The onomatopoeic title captures the kinetic reality of the work: not Ikebana as stillness, but as confrontation, acceptance, and the quiet strength that remains after fear is faced.

Starlit Ethnobotanical Wonders

Residency, Ma Umi Residencies, Ishigaki, 2024

A research-led residency on the subtropical island of Ishigaki, weaving ethnobotanical knowledge, medicinal plant traditions, and nocturnal pollination ecosystems into Ikebana perfomance and community workshops. Materials are chosen for theirs medicinal significance and cultural resonance, exploring the symbiotic bond between human communities, plant life, and the ecosystems they share.

Ethno-Botanic Resonance

Performance, London Metropolitan University, 2024

A site-specific Ikebana performance at The Wash Houses, London's oldest public washing facility, confronting the vulnerability and resilience embedded in plant-based healing traditions. Developed in collaboration with Chelsea Physic Garden, medicinal herbs and ethnobotanical knowledge become more than material: they are histories of survival, care, and the capacity to heal wounds.

Sogetsu Ikebana 3 × 7 = 21

Residency, Atelier Mondial, Basel, 2023

A performative Ikebana installation developed during residency, weaving personal objects and everyday narratives into Ikebana composition. Collected objects carriy an intimate anecdote; assembled through Sogetsu Ikebana, they become a shared moment between artist and audience, a living record of the residency's accumulated connections.

Sogetsu Ikebana 202200080026

Performance, E-werk, Freiburg im Breisgau, 2023

A performative Ikebana installation in which hand-constructed vessels embody the material and emotional residue of diaspora and transition. Without water, the green materials slowly wither within the installation, making impermanence not a metaphor but a live condition: a record of journey, loss, and what is carried across borders.

Ikebana Exhibitions

Exhibition works extend performative practice into composed Ikebana installations. Every composition is built from materials chosen for their conceptual and cultural specificity, proposing that every material is already a statement of relevance to the work.

Ikebana Workshops

Workshop practice extends Ikebana into participatory and pedagogical contexts, inviting communities to engage directly with botanical matter, unconventional materials, and the compositional thinking of Sogetsu Ikebana. Each session becomes a shared space of making, exchange, and material attention.

Ikebana Décalcomanie

A drawing series translating Ikebana into two-dimensional space through décalcomanie, pigment flowing, merging, and settling beyond intention, mirroring the organic resistance of each stem in arrangement. Rooted in seven years of ongoing research into avian colour harmonies, the work meditates on impermanence, surrender, and the dialogue between manipulation and unpredictability.

Fractured Ephemera

A digital collage series liberating Ikebana from vessel and space, florals cut, disassembled, and reconstituted into hovering visual constellations through layering and distortion. Cut and paste becomes a metaphor for trimming and arranging: Ikebana's transient physical presence translated into an evolving digital form.

SELECTED PROJECTS

© 2026 Hedy Leung. All rights reserved.