Installation and reading in public space
Botanical Garden Belvedere
20 min
2022

Volle Blüte, Literarische Spaziergänge im Botanischen Garten der Universität Wien kurartiert von Beatrice Simonsen.
© Dirk Simonsen

In the framework of ‘Volle Blüte: Literarische Spaziergänge’ (curated by Beatrice Simonsen) I was invited to place the paper plants from the installation ‘So, I weed’ into the Botanical Garden of University of Vienna Belvedere. They found their place next to the newly created educational center where the University of Vienna decided not to cultivate the disturbed landscape and let the natural weeds take their space. Based on my previous research into the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna history, I gave a short general lecture about different characteristics of bad and good weeds that could be found in almost every institution’s history.

EXCERPT FROM THE READING

'Type of plant: dandelion
Subcategory: care work
Amount in the archive: 250 grams
Character: maintenance

Dandelion is a strong weed that doesn't really get the attention it deserves. It operates in the background, offering beautiful moments and necessary nutrition for the always flying around insects in the garden's ecosystem. Newest researches tell us about the importance of care work as also dandelion roots healing powers that might even cure cancer. The plant we didn't care about, cares about us. But as it is often overlooked in the past, the document research provided very little evidence of its existence. Even if we all know it must have been there, it was only mentioned to exist when the caretakers of the house failed their missions, when they misbehaved… or caused trouble to the insects.'