The Urban Plant Agenda
2019
Hand embroidery, cotton on linen
200 x 150 cm
Technological progress has provided the human species with remarkable ways and instruments for observing the world: satellites transmitting thermal infrared images to meteorological stations, optical telescopes, electron microscopes and the Hubble space telescope, all allowing us to wander the near universe of our own cells or the distant cosmic space, extending the limits of our visual sphere. But at the middle scale, that of the unassisted eye, our acuity seems diminished, not by any failing of the eyes, but by the will of the mind, too numb from lack of time and patience to perceive the interstices of everyday urban breathing.
Agnes Ársælsdóttir invites us to re-wild our thinking and seeing, to rediscover the non-human nature around us, even in public spaces, to learn from the intelligence of other living bodies participating in the organisation of the ecosystem. Right from her arrival in Slănic, the artist was surprised to see all the walls and sidewalks invaded by plants, elder and pine trees or grass and moss growing through gaps and cracks. She started to document and study them, interested in the way the roots absorb water from the deep through the cement layers.
"In my embroidery, the forest is weaving itself into the fabric of the city using water pipes to transmit the liquid needed by plants to grow - says the artist. Cotton threads are like these invisible roots in action, in concert.”
The Urban Plant Agenda is a symbolic acknowledgement of the resistance of nature against human hubris, but also a subtle analogy for human survival through cooperation in an uncertain future.
Text by curator Simona Nastac
Owned by In Context
