Floraphilia, 14.9.2018, Location Search in depth, © Meggy Rustamova
Artists: Maria Buczek, Karolina Grzywnowicz, Dagna Jakubowska, Teresa Murak, Mateusz Okoński, Maria Thereza Alves, Alberto Baraya, Lauri Ainala & Kelle Hamm, Candice Lin, Uriel Orlow, Naufuz Ramirez-Figueroa, Achim Riechers, Meggy Rustamova, Judith Westerveld.
The exhibition Floraphilia. Plants as Archives illuminates the social and political aspects of the history of plants, botany and botanical gardens. In various ways the artworks in the exhibition refer to plants’ co-option throughout colonial history and history in general, as well as to their economic, feminist and migratory contexts. They encourage us to reject the common conceptualisation of a plant as a mechanistic thing that only reacts to simple stimuli, leading us to a vision of significant continuity between humans and plants, which – dynamic, breathing and growing – possess intentionality and even memory.
The exhibition marks the opening of the two-year project Floraphilia: On the Interrelations of the Plant World, Botany and Colonialism. In 2019, Floraphilia will take place at the following partner institutions: SAVVY Contemporary in Berlin, Council in Paris, La Loge in Brussels and Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art in Kraków.
Floraphilia: On the Interrelations of the Plant World, Botany and Colonialism is funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation.