Science/Fiction — A Non-History of Plants @ MEP

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Science/Fiction — A Non-History of Plants @ MEP

September 19th, 2024 by fstop

Miljohn Ruperto and Ulrik Heltoft, Études botaniques Voynich, 50 Leto, 2014, 50 x 40 cm
© Miljohn Ruperto and Ulrik Heltoft Courtesy Friends Indeed Gallery, San Francisco, and Vacancy Gallery, Shanghai

Science/Fiction — A Non-History of Plants
October 16, 2024 to January 19, 2025

“Bringing together over 40 artists from different eras and nationalities, this exhibition contrasts historic photographic works such as Anna Atkins’ cyanotypes, Karl Blossfeldt’s inventory of plant forms and Laure Albin Guillot’s microscope experiments, with creations by contemporary artists such as Jochen Lempert, Pierre Joseph, Angelica Mesiti, Agnieszka Polska and Sam Falls.

Conceived in six chapters, this exhibition borrows its construction from the science-fiction novel: starting with the idea of a stable, identifiable world, it gradually plunges into uncertain, unexpected landscapes. The first two chapters, entitled “Plant Agentivity” and “Symbiosis & Contamination” respectively, are devoted to so-called objective, science-based approaches.
The other four chapters, entitled “Beyond reality”, “Plants are watching you”, “Plants and political fictions” and “Speculative fictions”, deal with the close ties between science and science fiction, two fields that have made flora a field for experimentation. Overcoming the normative divides between fiction and reality, science and art, the artists in this exhibition free themselves from fixed categories to capture the complexity of plant life and our relationship with plant beings.”

MEP

Location: France, Paris Type: Exhibition, Plants

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