(Work by Uriel Orlow)
The Theatrum Botanicum
Project exhibition is currently running in the Durban Art Gallery.
This work of Uriel Orlow titled Theatrum Botanicum project will be realised across several venues
in three cities in South Africa.
Using the medium of film, photography, installation and
sound, and working from the dual vantage points of South Africa and Europe, the
project considers plants as both witnesses and actors in history, and as
dynamic agents—connecting nature and humans, rural and cosmopolitan medicine,
tradition and modernity—across different geographies, histories and systems of
knowledge, with a variety of curative, spiritual and economic powers.
The works variously explore botanical nationalism and other
legacies of colonialism, plant migration and invasion, biopiracy, flower
diplomacy during apartheid, the garden planted by Nelson Mandela and his fellow
inmates on Robben Island prison, as well as the role of classification and
naming of plants.
Khadija von Zinnenburg Carrol describes how the project
looks to the botanical world as a stage on which these histories interact as
agents: "Theatrum Botanicum is not Botanicum, it is the theatre in which a
ghost of botany enters. The species is theatre, its genus is botany. The title Theatrum Botanicum is a binomial like
the Linnaean Latinate variety central to Uriel Orlow’s critique. Theatrum Botanicum is not botany as
theatre either, but a theatre in which botany is among a cast of colonial
protagonists, the powerful influence of which Orlow portrays.”
The project developed out of a research residency undertaken
in 2014 and evolved through successive trips between 2015 and 2017 in which
Orlow undertook extensive research in archives, and collaborated with
traditional medicine practitioners as well as those with legal and botanical
expertise, traversing Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town.
The project has evolved over several exhibitions including:
The Showroom, London (2016); EVA International (2016) curated by Koyo Kouoh;
the 2017 Sharjah Biennal 13 (where it won a major award); and Kunsthalle St
Gallen, Switzerland (2018). The South African iteration sees the project return
to its geography of origin, giving local audiences and practitioners - some of
whom helped shape the project - an opportunity to critically and generatively
respond to the body of work.
Durban Art Gallery is one of South Africa's major public art
collections showcasing contemporary and historic art practice from the
continent. This project forms part of a special programme of Pro Helvetia
Johannesburg, the Southern African liaison office of the Swiss Arts Council,
celebrating 20 years of collaboration and exchange with the region.
The project will run at the Durban Art Gallery until October
28, 2018.
The Durban Art Gallery is situated on the second floor of
the Durban City Hall, entrance in Anton Lembede (formerly Smith) Street opposite
the Playhouse. Gallery hours: Monday to Saturday 08h30 to 16h00 and Sundays from
11h00 to 16h00. More information on 031 311 2262/6.
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