18 Sep 2020

Vanja Smiljanić – Plant Rant: Mea Culpa on Chlorophyll Sling at IKOB - Museum of Contemporary Art

Plant Rant: Mea Culpa on Chlorophyll Sling provides a space for precognitive (re)creation. You might call it a garden. Which it is. The simulated garden that offers a variety of practices to perform and read time in a spirographic manner. Woven inside, there are multiple herstories of herbalism, activism, and deep-time trauma. You are cordially invited on a stroll through its thealogical multiverse and taste the bitter-sweetness of its fruits.

Agustina Androleti, wrote about Vanja Smiljanićs exhibition for Gemeinde Köln, on which her IKOB exhibition is based on:
'Vanja Smiljanić's site-specific installation for Gemeinde Köln is a new chapter of her poetic study on cyclical temporalities. Subjecting materials – carpet, vinyl, moving images, sound, gloves– to painterly cuts, Smiljanić not only offers alternatives to the linear, traditional progress of time we still long to obey; she also evokes some of its violence through reclaiming practices. Trauma and acknowledgment unleash the greener side of empowerment, in ways of a garden, where even the most innocent plant could be a remedy or a poison, depending on its dosage and combination. Establishing relationships with the past through the memory of oppressed agents create alliances. The different species in Smiljanić's installation propose a view on what bodies can do and what they can be made to do, weaving together multiple herstories of herbalism and activism.'

„Plant Rant: Mea Culpa on Chlorophyll Sling' gathers together three works composed of different elements: a labyrinth, a soft column, a video installation, a sculptural arrangement, and a wall tapestry. The labyrinth's looping path runs through the exhibition space, offering the visitors a step-by-step insight into multiple roles of women and plants. On the column, the repetition of motifs as a sequence of movements might evoke the record of stories carved in stone. However, they provide a more fluid approach to it through the mobile nature of textile patterns.