The exhibition will open on April 6, and there will be a performative talk by the Institute for Postnatural Studies at 12:30 pm.
The history of the vegetal world is the history of humanity. Botany is its ally, capturing its stories and flattening its narratives through an anthropocentric perspective. But plants do not belong to any garden. Neither do their forms nor their journeys belong to the history of science. Nor do they belong to the world: they are the world and world makers. From their roots to the tips of their stems, they show indifference towards humans, the cultures of their peoples, the alternation of their kingdoms, their wars, and their eras. Their flowers and leaves are mirrors. They seem to grow with the desire to merge with the earth. Their petals mimic the shapes around them, like the sharpness of a bird’s beak, or the fold-like currents of wind,...playing with the soil’s tones while absorbing the solar dust that excites their veins.
There are no invasive species. There are no bad weeds or toxic nectars. If there are plants that become drugs for humans, the more-than-human world vibrates in hallucinogenic reveries. Poison is not the substance but the dose. Plants are ancient migrants, strange beings, with cellular bodies. Their forms display the infinite ecologies of the living and the sentient. They are dark and opaque, and their branches form the neurological network of the universe. They connect the fertile soil with the sunlight and are home to insects, magical potions, and countless stories of resistance.
Taking its name from the Nahuatl term ‘peyōni’, which means to glisten, this exhibition is an invitation to think about plants, flowers, and botanical species from multiple perspectives; to embrace the experience of plant life as a portal to other worlds; to listen and look at their subtle defiance, and to invoke their lives and stories of resistance and resilience.
In the main hall, the work Metaphysics of Mixture: Notes on postnatural gardening (Video, 2024) narrates, through six different species, hidden stories and tales that blur the relationships between culture and nature. From the mantles of green leaves that cover an entire country to the hallucinations and the possessions of the devil, from more-than-human alliances to witchcraft and migrations, from ballrooms and dance rituals to colonial violence and power structures, it invokes plants as allies, as living archives of the earth.
In the adjoining room, the series peyōni (Acid-etched glass, 2024) created with acid-etched matte glass reproduces botanical images taken from herbarium archives. The image of the plant on the translucent plane reflects on the background a blurred shadow that diffuses its limits. Its reflections, transparencies, and gleams refer to the infinite stories hidden behind plant life.
