The Great Wave off Kanagawa has survived for almost two centuries through repetition. It has moved from woodblock print to museum collection, textbook, poster, product and screen, becoming so familiar that it is easy to see the symbol before seeing the image itself. In Brussels this August, the Japanese artist Hiro Sugiyama asked what might happen if the wave were rebuilt in a material that could not last.
Neo-Hokusai, his design for the 24th Brussels Flower Carpet, occupies 1,680 square metres of the Grand-Place from August 13 to 16. More than one hundred volunteers assembled the floral field in a matter of hours. The organizers describe more than 700,000 Belgian-grown flowers in the full carpet, while the city identifies over 500,000 dahlias in Sugiyama’s Great Wave design.
At a glance
- Installation
- Neo-Hokusai
- Artist
- Hiro Sugiyama
- Event
- 24th Brussels Flower Carpet
- Location
- Grand-Place, Brussels
- Dates
- August 13–16, 2026
- Scale
- 1,680 m² · More than 700,000 flowers
The work marks 160 years of diplomatic relations between Belgium and Japan, but its strongest connection is material rather than ceremonial. A printed image known for freezing a moment of overwhelming motion is translated into hundreds of thousands of living units. The wave becomes monumental, collective and fragrant—and then, after four days, it disappears.
The wave becomes monumental, collective and fragrant—and then, after four days, it disappears.
Sugiyama’s installation shifts a globally reproduced image from print into living material. The translation makes scale, collective labor and impermanence part of how the work is understood, rather than treating the flower carpet as a decorative copy.
