Step inside a living kaleidoscope: Suncoast View explores the orchid show 2026 at Selby Gardens

SARASOTA, Fla. (WWSB) - Downtown Sarasota is getting an extra splash of color this season as Marie Selby Botanical Gardens blends living botany with light-bending contemporary art.Suncoast View reporter headed out to the bayfront campus to check out The Orchid Show 2026: Christian Sampson, the garden’s annual exhibition that pairs rare blooms with vibrant glass, acrylic, and dichroic film installations.Created by Bradenton-born artist and Ringling College alumnus Christian Sampson, the site-specific works interact directly with natural Florida sunlight. Inside the Display Conservatory and throughout the garden pathways, color-shifting panels cast playful reflections across living orchids and epiphytes. Across campus at the Richard and Ellen Sandor Museum of Botany the Arts, additional pieces draw direct inspiration from Selby Gardens’ collection, the finest scientifically documented orchid archive in the world.The show marks a local homecoming for Sampson, an MFA graduate of Hunter C