In this Signal Room conversation, artist Lida Sherafatmand joins Michael Frugtniet to explore what art can offer a world that has become increasingly loud, hurried and difficult to inhabit. Lida traces the origins of Florescencism—her artistic and cultural philosophy of human flowering—from her childhood in Iran, her experience of displacement and her early discovery of flowers as a quiet, non-verbal form of companionship. What began as a language for painting gradually became a wider inquiry into the conditions that allow individuals, communities and societies to grow through difficulty. Their discussion moves between art, nature, education, international relations and the experiences of younger generations. Lida argues that socially engaged art need not rely only on disturbance or spectacle: beauty, gentleness and a sense of refuge can also c ...