Plant Communitas Exhibition
Press release 25/07/2023
A fascinating new exhibition opens at The Sidney Nolan Trust this week. Plant Communitas, which runs from 3 August – 30 September, features a community of artists from diverse practices and places. The artists work locally, nationally, and internationally and are united by their interests in human-plant relations.
For centuries Western thinking has backgrounded the plant kingdom. Anthropocentrism (the belief that human beings are the central or most important entity in the universe) became the prevailing philosophical stance. However, multiple indigenous cultures consider vegetal beings part of an animistic world (in which objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence - are animated and alive.) Within these cultures, value is placed on kinship relations between persons, and creatures, and extends seamlessly to plants.
The Plant Communitas exhibition acknowledges that increasingly Western societies are beginning to understand the positive impact of plants on human well-being - the capacity of plants to nourish, nurture, and heal. It includes work by artist Annemiek de Beer, Gemma Costin, Amanda Coppes-Martin, Sigrid Holmwood, Mair Hughes, Madeleine Kelly, Fiona Owen, Cristina Flores Pescorán, Ingrid Pumayalla, Siren Elise Wilhelmsen and Tim Parry-William.
Cristina Flores Pescorán and Ingrid Pumayalla are Peruvian artists with practices spanning textiles, moving image, photography and ritual performance. Pumayalla, "The performances are a 'modern cry' and dialogue informed by the spiritual relationship that indigenous peoples from the Andes and the Amazon develop with their surroundings."
Madeleine Kelly, "Printing with light is at the heart of my work with photosynthesis. The Scientist Lynn Margulis proved the organelle responsible for photosynthesis, the chloroplast, evolved when ancient bacteria merged with eukaryotic cells to become an entirely new symbiotic being. She postulated that we are all walking communities of our bacterial origins”.
The Trust has worked with curator Patricia Brien to tour the exhibition, which was first shown at Museum in the Park, Stroud, last year. As a touring exhibition, it has different iterations and responses to the specific nuances of place and context. This exhibition in the gallery at the Sidney Nolan Trust acknowledges and incorporates the work of Sir Sidney Nolan as an important inspiration and anchor in the curatorial direction.
The exhibition is accompanied by a schedule of events including artists in conversation, performances and workshops details of which can be found at the Trust’s website.
Plan a visit to both this and other exhibitions which include Earth Photo 2023, the beautiful gardens, a great pop-up cafe and the historic manor house - The Rodd.