nGbK am Alex - Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 11/13, Berlin
Exhibition
In urban space, plants are everywhere: in parks and gardens, lining streets, on vacant lots, and between paving slabs, but also in shops and restaurants, in apartments, on balconies, in offices—and not least in exhibition spaces.
The exhibition Orangery of Care begins with an installation using discarded houseplants. Whereas botanical collections study and present “wild” plants, those on show here are the domesticated forms of these species that were once removed from their natural habitats. Rather than telling about faraway ecosystems, this orangery points to the world of households and offices as spaces animated by plants. Taking this para-greenhouse as its starting point, members of the artist group PARA in their function as nGbK-work group have invited thirteen artistic works that explore different aspects of the relationship between humans and plants in urban contexts. Sculptures, video and spatial installations, paintings, and textile works reflect on the colonial history of houseplants and on plant care as part of privatized practices of preserving life.
On the history of botanical gardens
Orangeries were developed in the seventeenth century to winter citrus trees imported from Asia in the gardens of Europe’s Baroque palaces. The trees were placed in pots and moved to heated, well-lit indoor spaces. This new type of building was the forerunner of palm houses; in the colonial age it was fashionable among European aristocrats to build large collections of plants from the tropics, to display them, and to have them studied. A similar glass architecture was also developed for transporting vegetal beings: for the first time, the Wardian Case made it possible to ship whole plants (not just seeds and roots as had previously been the case) from the colonies to Europe’s cities and to domesticate them. Inspired by botanical gardens, the aspiring middle classes were soon adorning their dwellings with tropical plants, a trend that continues with all the rubber plants, monsteras, and yuccas to be found in urban apartments today.
From the damage done by expeditions and landgrabs to the plantation system and botanical taxonomies, that were accompanied by racist natural science and the destruction of local knowledge, the history of botany is deeply entangled with colonial violence. Even today, the ways humans relate to plants are full of projections onto the “unknown” and the “untouched,” but also the “feminine,” all of which often express internalized mechanisms of exoticization and fetishization. These mechanisms “naturalize” the exploitative (post-)colonial and patriarchal conditions that are destroying the ecological and social basis of life.
Modes of relatedness, practices of nurturing and care
The way city-dwellers like to surround themselves with plants and to keep these plants alive, however, also seems to reflect an interest in “more-than-human” worlds. The domestic care for plants can sharpen the sense of what it means to take responsibility for other living beings. Accordingly, the exhibition asks whether rethinking human-plant relationships might also foster a relearning of our own interpersonal relationships. As well as referring to the influence of the colonial past on the way people live with plants, this also reflects the importance of regenerative and caring practices for the preservation of ecosystems.
The interplay of the different artworks in the exhibition raises questions on the significance of care: What are the preconditions for life? What do nurturing practices involve? How much of a burden is the responsibility for looking after other living beings? What does it mean to understand learning about historical contexts as part of care? What is the role of empathy? Can plants teach us about reciprocal support? What conditions must be created if we are to take better care of the plant world and of each other? The artists featured in the exhibition engage with the limits of the capacity for care, with constructions of nature and femininity, and with the tensions between protection and control that are inherent in keeping and preserving plants.
PARA Orangery
These themes are reflected in PARA's installation on the window front, which forms the conceptual anchor of the exhibition. The Orangery takes discarded houseplants into temporary care: Whether they outgrew their interiors, grew too crooked for the aesthetic preferences of their roommates, or became redundant due to the clearance of an office or apartment—plants are constantly being given up by their owners. Here, too, the PARA Orangery differs from botanical collections: Rather than being conserved and turned into museum artefacts, the plants are propagated and redistributed. Preservation of life is understood not as the control of stable living conditions, but as the facilitation of change.
The PARA Orangery documents, transforms, and distributes: Houseplants can no longer propagate themselves on their own. Their roots come up against the inside of clay or plastic pots, their seeds cannot be carried away by the wind. Especially in urban spaces, they often use friendships between their human roommates to multiply: in the form of cuttings given as presents, they make their way from apartment to apartment. The houseplants in the PARA Orangery also use this principle. In the form of digital scans, the mother plants first move to a new, unlimited habitat in digital space that also documents their history. Then they can be nurtured with water, light, and voice and propagated in the form of cuttings: genetically identical with them, the many new plants will be given away to interested visitors over the course of the show. None of the houseplants on display will need to be discarded at the end of the exhibition.
➔ Virtual orangery
Events
Thursday, 10 October, 15:00 (de/en)
nGbK am Alex, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 11/13, 10178 Berlin
Workshop with PARA
Saturday, 12 October, 14:00–17:00 (de)
nGbK am Alex, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 11/13, 10178 Berlin
➔ Colour, Touch, Sound. Encountering the Vegetal 1
Walk and workshop with Dunja Krcek
Saturday, 12 October, 18:00–20:00 (en)
nGbK am Alex, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 11/13, 10178 Berlin
➔ Colour, Touch, Sound. Encountering the Vegetal 2
Lecture Performance by Mélia Roger, talk with Dunja Krcek and Mélia Roger.
moderated by Gilly Karjevsky
Sunday, 13 October, 14:00 (de/en)
nGbK am Alex, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 11/13, 10178 Berlin
Workshop with PARA
Sunday, 13 October, 14:00–17:00 (de/en)
nGbK am Alex, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 11/13, 10178 Berlin
Workshop for children with Josephine Hans
Thursday, 17 October, 14:00 (de/en)
nGbK am Alex, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 11/13, 10178 Berlin
Workshop with PARA
Thursday, 24 October, 14:00 (de/en)
nGbK am Alex, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 11/13, 10178 Berlin
Workshop with PARA
Wednesday, November 6, 17:00-18:00 (de)
nGbK am Alex, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 11/13, 10178 Berlin
➔ Curatorial tour and plant care with PARA
Wednesday, November 6, 18:30-20:30 (en)
nGbK am Alex, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 11/13, 10178 Berlin
A performative activation of the space by and with Juliana Oliveira Reading and conversation with Jessica J. Lee
Saturday, November 16, 17:00 - 18:00 (de)
nGbK am Alex, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 11/13, 10178 Berlin
➔ Curatorial tour and plant care with PARA
Saturday, November 16, 18:30 - 20:30 (en)
nGbK am Alex, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 11/13, 10178 Berlin
Talks, conversations and screening with Fanny Brandauer, Rob Crosse, Shirin Sabahi and Bethan Hughes
Sunday, November 17, 15:00 - 18:00
nGbK am Alex, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 11/13, 10178 Berlin
Long duration concert by Miki Yui
Credits
Artworks by: Laure Prouvost, Julia Löffler, Anne Marie Maes & Margarita Maximova, Hoda Tawakol, Samir Laghouati-Rashwan, Dunja Krcek, Marlene Heidinger, Shirin Sabahi, Bethan Hughes, Sophie Utikal, Rob Crosse, Jana Kerima Stolzer & Lex Ruetten, Jesse McLean & PARA
Fotos: Jonas Fischer
Grafik: Smile Initial Plus
Web Development Digitale Orangerie: Anna Greunig