Vegetation as a political agent. A geography of nature’s resistance

Years ago a dear friend of mine pointed out to me that most of the plants that we usually call “weed” come from South America. They arrived in Europe after the colonization of the American continent – plants able to survive with few drops of water and able to live between rocks, growing in the space of a fissure. At that time I thought – maybe just for fun –  “wow.. this is a clear signal of political resistance.” But now, rethinking about that story, I ask myself: was mine really just a joke? These days something made me reflect again about the idea/relation between resistance and plants: Vegetation as a political agent is the new exhibition curated by Marco Scotini for PAV (Parco Arte Vivente) in Turin.

RozO (Philippe Zourgane e Severine Roussel When vegetation is not decoration 2014 ©ECPAD/France Courtesy the artists.

RozO (Philippe Zourgane e Severine Roussel) When vegetation is not decoration,  ©ECPAD/France/ unknown photographer, ALG 56 124

Focusing on the dual contexts of the past and the present, Vegetation as a political agent combines artistic, filmic and architectural work by 14 international artists. These are documents that pertain to the historical pioneers of the first ecological revolutions and scientific equipment relevant to the botanical world. Together with the artwork and installations, the exhibition includes a vast series of illustrations and samples of vegetation, archive materials and posters produced in a wide variety of cultural contexts. The geopolitical areas to which the exhibition relates range from the Indian Ocean to Guinea-Bissau, from South Africa to Mexico. The background question seems to be: could nature be a tool to tear down ideologies? The exhibition, effectively, aims to investigate the historical and social implications of the plant world in light of the ever-increasing reclaim of “green” as an agent of change in relation to current neoliberal processes. To place a plant within a historical context means to consider not only its biological constitution, but also the social and political factors, which see it already positioned at the centre of the earliest forms of economic globalization. The colonial plantations and maritime trade of 17th and 18th centuries gave rise to the first systems of species control, and saw the emergence of cases of land expropriation and exploitation in the pursuit to monopolise spices.

Piero Gilardi O.G.M. Free [G.M.O. Free] 2014 Costumes for political animation, painted expanded polyurethane, cloth and mannequins, variable size. Courtesy Fondazione Centro Studi Piero Gilardi.

Adelita Husni-Bey Story of the Heavens and Our Planet, Archetype I 2008-2009 Video Super8 transferred on DVD and subsequent installation; 7’07” Courtesy Galleria La Veronica, Modica

Bonnie Ora Sherk Crossroads Community (The Farm) 1974 -ongoing Alternative art space DVD 18’02” Courtesy the artists

Filipa César Conakry 2012 10‘20“/16 mm transferred to HD video, sound, color, 10’20”

The exhibition seeks to shed light on the various stages in history in which vegetation served as a symbol of social emancipation. Here I want, firstly, figure out which is the relationship between the human colonization of the “new world” and the idea of otherness. I think that from the problematization of this relationship we could understand how art belongs to this process. This idea comes from my first reflection about resistance/nature. Plants respond to the colonization attempts of humankind the same way in which art responds to the established world. This happens – for sure – only when artistic creations shape political conceptions. The exploitation of the entire world is the starting point of a pursuit to monopolise biological species. Against this behavior we observed nature’s reaction. In Vegetation as a political agent it is clear that the subject “nature” is not only an idea, it is something else. Thus, what is nature precisely? Is it something abstract, or – even worst – something transcendent? From the exhibition, nothing of all of this comes into view. On the contrary, nature seems to be something tangible. Looking at nature as something manifest implies that artists acknowledge the value of nature’s otherness. Thinking nature as otherness means thinking nature as a political agent. The value of nature’s otherness was destroyed by colonization, and overall from the human attempt to exploit nature. Today art tries to turn this ruination process upside down by following nature’s model (anti-nature, as I said before).  In Vegetation as a political agent the idea of otherness is central to artistic analysis of how authority and minority identities are constructed.

The exhibition raises issues concerning the claim of creative subjectivity through horticultural practices as considered, for example, in the work of Ayreen Anastas & Rene Gabri, that focuses on the launch onto the market of organic seeds to maintain biodiversity; Claire Pentecost’s study on transgenic corn in Mexico; and the work of Marjetica Potrč, who established a self-organized vegetable garden and park in Soweto. Daniel Halter works with flowering plants that have taken root in the Italian landscape but originate from South Africa, proposing a form of a reverse colonization of Europe by African invaders. The 1970s are represented through figures such as the Hungarian Imre Bukta and the Californian Bonnie Ora Sherk, and approached from the perspective of the pioneering interaction between art and agriculture against the contrasting backdrop of the Cold War.

Imre Bukta In The Cemetary Of Farm Wagons 1976, alu-dibond, cm 80×120

Vegetation as a political agent is curated by Marco Scotini, works by: Ayreen Anastas & Rene Gabri, Imre Bukta, Amilcar Cabral, Filipa César, Critical Art Ensemble, Emory Douglas, Fernando García-Dory, Piero Gilardi, Daniel Halter, Adelita Husni-Bey, Bonnie Ora Sherk, Claire Pentecost, Marjetica Potrč, RozO (Philippe Zourgane & Séverine Roussel), Nomeda and Gediminas Urbonas.

PAV Turin 31 May–2 November 2014.