Flowers of Our Land
Israeli Center for Digital Arts
16 February - 1 June 2019
Holon, Israel
Curated by Udi Edelman
Artists: Anat Barzilai, Droit Bialer, Relli De Vries, Effi and Amir, Noa Giniger, Tamar Latzman, Ella Littwitz, Hadas Ophrat, Indrė Šerpytytė
Human contemplation of flora has always been twofold. On the one hand, there is the sense of wonder when faced with the natural world, and on the other – the innate drive to utilize nature, to consume and market it, to transfer its products from place to place and control its growth. This instrumental attitude towards nature is interwoven into the fabric of relations between humans and is also tied to various forms of community settlement. The exhibition Flowers of Our Land offers a renewed look at flora generally, and at certain plants specifically (olive tree, spiderwort, cyclamen, willow, tumble thistle, and others). It examines the use of plants as a form of communication between groups, as well as a conduit to mediate and separate between groups and the individuals that comprise them – and finally, between these individuals and themselves. In a much broader context, the exhibition examines the gaping differences between "plants" (meaning the actual organic plant substance) and the "botanical" (meaning the human view of plants, research on their uses, and use of related socio-political imagery). These differences encapsulate the inherent tension between the human attempt to dominate nature and the threat posed by nature's wild and ungovernable elements.
Installation photography by Dafna Gazit