• Fri 25 10 – Tue 31 12 2019 •
Floraphilia Revolution of Plants

Curated by ANETA ROSTKOWSKA

Exhibition Design by MATEUSZ OKOŃSKI

With AGENCY OF SINGULAR INVESTIGATIONS (ASI), MAGDA BUCZEK, IGOR and IVAN BUHAROV, SADDIE CHOUA, RUTH EWAN, DAGNA JAKUBOWSKA, CECYLIA MALIK, KATRIN MAYER, BIANKA ROLANDO, BEATRIZ SANTIAGO MUÑOZ and ÅSA SONJASDOTTER

In recent years, plant breeding has become a popular hobby, exhibited primarily on the Internet. Blogs and social media channels are full of photos of carefully arranged pot plants, texts on plant care and urban gardening. What is the reason for this increased interest in the domesticated natural world? In Discourse on Lyric Poetry and Society, Adorno argues that the reason for the sacralization of nature lies in the individual’s alienation from capitalist society, which causes them to seek a place of retreat. The contact with flora calms, but it does not resolve the cause of one's poor mental state. Is such an idea of nature as a depoliticized means of improving our mood and as a perfect object of consumption the only possible vision?

The exhibition Floraphilia. Revolution of Plants offers an alternative approach and illuminates the emancipatory potential of the plant world. It considers plants as an inspiration for future political action. What fascinates us is the resilience of the flora, its ability to adapt and communicate and its indifference to national borders. Thus, the common understanding of plants as ‘things’ reacting only to simple stimuli is called into question: the plant is liberated from its lower position in the hierarchy of species and grasped as a – dynamic, breathing and growing – creature that possess intentionality and even memory. The space of Warsaw Biennale is thus transformed into the laboratory for a revolution to-come built on cross-species exchange.

The unique exhibition architecture highlights the ritual, social and scientific issues addressed by the artworks and emphasizes the need to move beyond the mere instrumentalization of nature. Religious or shamanic notions of vegetation overlap with findings of modern science, which show that plants are much more complex organisms than commonly thought. The exhibition design also invites visitors to dwell in the exhibition space, thus attempting to establish an alternative temporality that comes closer to the slowly evolving plant world.

Furthermore, a special edition of the SURPLUS project will be presented. Artist Magda Buczek digs into discourses, lifestyle trends and modern ecologies to fish for new semantic fetishes concerning the plant world.


Free admission
Opening Hours: Di-So 12:00-20:00
Venue: Warsaw Biennale, Ul. Marszałkowska 34/50, 00-560 Warsaw, Poland

The Exhibition is part of the project Floraphilia. On the Interrelations of the Plant World, Botany and Colonialism.

In cooperation with Biennale Warszawa.
Funded by the Federal Cultural Foundation.