Bordering Plants

The practice of botany can be broadly described as the cultivation of plants in indoor spaces, gardens and greenhouses. Though indoor plants and plant cultivation, more generally, are often associated with connectedness, peace, and tranquillity, recent criticism produced by scholars such as Ros Gray and Shela Sheikh (Goldsmiths University, London) show that the practice of botany in many coun­tries in Europe has a much darker history, emerging as a consequence of the exploratory voyages that European colonial powers sent around the world. 

The exhibition Bordering Plants emerges from this critical, historical lens. Within the interconnected fields of contemporary art, critical theory, architecture/design practice, plants, and their theoretical implications are becoming an increasingly addressed phenomena and typology. We find plants, and images of them, in our books, exhibitions, cafes, and Instagram Feeds. We find plants on our sidewalks, urban gardens and bed side tables. We also find plants on demarcation zones industrial greenhouses, and surplus compost bins. This exhibition will consider, through critical transdisciplinary works how plants interrogate, affirm or call to question notions of the border. Our interpretation of borders is not that of a stagnant entity, but, quoting Brett Neilson and Sandro Mezzadra, as a ‘methodology’ and ‘epis¬temic viewpoint’ for thinking about ‘cast(ed)’ and ‘recasted relations, (…) of tension and conflict, partition and connection, traversing and barricading, life and death.’ The border thus becomes not a fact, but a methodological perspective suggesting binary, on various scales. 

With contributions by: laschulas (Angélica Castelló, Natalia Domínguez Rangel, Lorena Moreno Vera, Lucía Simón Medina), Basurama(Mónica Gutiérrez Herrero), Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, Gianna Virginia Prein, Alán Carrasco, Agustín Ortiz Herrera, Mary Maggic, Landon Newton, Ava Binta Giallo, Dusts Institute (Adam Hudec, Katja Sterflinger, Michelle Howard, Laura Rabbachin), Studio Wild (Tymon Hogenelst, Jesse van der Ploeg)

Curators: Carmen Lael Hines, Adam Hudec, Roberto Majano

Exhibition Design: Bilal Alame, Joanna Zabielska