Project Flamboyant: Seeing Cayman’s Poinciana Through New Eyes

19/08/2026

THERE’S A MOMENT EVERY YEAR WHEN CAYMAN TURNS THE SATURATION ALL THE WAY UP. THE POINCIANAS ARE TO BLAME!

We see the familiar trunks arching over the main roads. Canopies of great bursts of scarlet, vermilion and orange-red, petals scattered like nature got carried away with the confetti.

For all its drama, though, the poinciana is one of those things we can become strangely blind to. It’s a funny consequence of living somewhere beautiful: eventually, beauty can become furniture.

Project Flamboyant was an attempt to interrupt that familiarity.

The concept was deliberately uncomplicated. Find a poinciana. Spend some time with it, create something original.

flamboyant!

Click here to see the community photo submissions from the Photo Challenge.

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The idea behind Project Flamboyant

We invited photographers, creatives and anyone who felt moved to take part to capture the Royal Poinciana through their own lens. What followed was less about finding the “best” picture and more about the community connecting with nature, or simply sharing their work.

From Elsewhere, Rooted Here

For a tree that looks so completely at home in Cayman, it is not Caribbean by origin at all.

The Royal Poinciana, Delonix regia, is native to Madagascar, off the east coast of Africa. From there, it became one of the great botanical travellers of the tropical world, planted far beyond its original range because humans took one look at it in bloom and, quite reasonably, decided they wanted one too. Today it grows across the Caribbean, Central America, parts of Asia, Africa, Australia and the warmer reaches of the United States.

Somewhere along that journey, the tree became thoroughly Caribbean.

In a Cayman Compass garden column from February of 1972, the writer described a flamboyant poinciana stretching across the front of a Cayman home and predicted that the whole island would soon “come alive” when the trees burst into scarlet blossom.

Read the Cayman Compass article

A place is not made only from what originated there. It is shaped by what arrives, what takes root, and what people come to recognise as their own. That makes the poinciana a fitting subject for this Cayman Style project. It carries a history of movement and reinterpretation, echoing the way Cayman takes what is around us and gives it meaning in our own way.

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People's Choice

This is the road I travel every day on my way to work, and throughout the year I see this Poinciana tree in many different forms. Thanks to this challenge, I’ve learned to truly appreciate its beauty and finally captured it through my lens.

- manolo

A Community in Focus

The submissions showed just how differently people could respond to the same tree.

Some approached the challenge with a photographer’s eye, thinking carefully about composition, light and post-production. Others simply noticed a poinciana on a familiar road and reached for their phone. Community does not arrive with the same experience, equipment or creative process. The value was in making room for all of it.

Some submissions became deeply personal. One contributor photographed a poinciana during “one of the hardest seasons of my life,” while another described the tree at Faith Hospital in Cayman Brac as a reminder that “life is both fragile and resilient.”

And then there was the entry that perhaps captured the tree best:

“She is who she thinks she is, majestically flamboyant.”

Fair enough!

Cayman Style 🌟 Favorites

For one very special submission, the process went much further. Inspired by photographer Pep Ventosa’s In the Round series, the creator, Daniel Langer walked around a poinciana tree taking roughly 40–50 photographs from different positions, then layered and blended them into a single impressionistic image.

Umbrella

The Umbrella is designed with a durable canopy and a polished mahogany handle.

Shown against the familiar backdrop of George Town’s Clock Tower, the Umbrella places the catboat reference directly into Cayman’s everyday public life.

“I thought about the catboat flipped upside down, and how that shape could become shelter. That is where the umbrella idea came from.”

Suitcase

The Suitcase is an anodized aluminum travel piece with reinforced corner guards, a telescoping handle, and spinner wheels.

The concept carries the catboat’s old relationship with transportation into a modern travel object.

“The same idea of movement led me to think about travel, and then the suitcase.”

It is one of the clearest translations in the collection, carrying the catboat’s practical role into the way people move today.

‘Toat’ Bag

The ‘Toat’ Bag is a structured canvas tote with a water-repellent finish and cotton rope handles. It became the top-voted concept in Bruce’s social media poll, a sign that the idea connected quickly.

The ‘Toat’ Bag also became the first concept to move from image to object.

“I’ve never made a bag in my life,” Bruce says. He started by asking friends and family to gather tote bags so he could feel the materials, measure the proportions, and understand what he wanted to create.

From Idea to First Sample

With help from YouTube, he built a tech pack and began working with suppliers to explain the product’s purpose and requirements. The payoff came when the first sample arrived.

“Nothing beats going from having a raw idea to unboxing this bag that seemed to emerge from my head,” Bruce says. “That’s a feeling you can’t really explain. You just have to create to experience.”

The Digital Exhibit

Welcome to the next part of Project Flamboyant.

For the digital exhibit, we invited selected creatives from different disciplines to take the poinciana somewhere new, with just two weeks to make something from the prompt and document how they got there.

The result is less about a polished final piece and more about watching an idea take shape through different creative minds, with penty of room to play.

How can I get one?

Register your interest in the Catboat Collection, from everyday pieces to limited collectible items.

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CREATIVE Experiment

digital Exhibit

Step into the Collaboratory, where Cayman’s national drink got a creative remix! Explore Swanky in new and unexpected way—a fusion of flavors, traditions, and bold ideas from our incredible collaborators.