playgarden, 2023
playgarden is a continuation of the garden projects exploring weeds as a resistance to our capitalist society in three themes: play, love and time. The research project experiments with old rituals and uses of indigenous plants in Belgium. The playgarden specifically focuses on plants with which you can play. Daisies (madeliefjes) are planted for counting petals and making daisy chains, cow parsley (fluitkruid) is for making whistles and poppies (klaproos) can turn into dolls. Currently the garden is growing Antirrhinum majus, Anthriscus sylvestris, Lamium album, Papaver rhoeas, Gallium aparine, Trifolium sp., Sambucus nigra, Taraxacum officinale, Bellis perrenis, Althaea officinalis, Arctium lappa.
The garden is situated in social housing complex Huileries. Erien invites the young neighbors and other gardeners to help care for and play in the garden. In July 2023 she organized a play event and filmed people and children playing in the garden. Below are some stills of this film.
The garden space is kindly offered by Leefmilieu Brussels and the municipality of Forest. This project is financed by the Vlaamse Overheid.
playgarden is a continuation of the garden projects exploring weeds as a resistance to our capitalist society in three themes: play, love and time. This project focussed on autumn. It includes seeds of maple trees (Acer L.) which resemble little helicopters when flying, walnuts (Juglans L.) which are used to make boats and chestnuts (Aesculus L.) which are used to make figurines. Alongside the plant materials there is a poster describing how the player can use each plant.
This installation was specifically made to accompany an installation of the work Children’s Games by Francis Alys in WIELS during the autumn holidays of 2023.
Wool cloths colored by indigenous plants from Belgium and the Netherlands. The plants used are the leaves of elderberry, sorrel, nettles and willow, the stems of horsetail, the flowers of tansy and roots of cleavers and dandelion. A selection of the old Dutch and Flemish names (before standardization in 1907) of the plants is embroidered on some of the cloths. The plants that appeared in the 'playgarden' were used to color woolen cloths, the actions were then embroidered on the cloths. playgarden is a continuation of the garden projects exploring weeds as a resistance to our capitalist society in three themes: play, love and time.
The coloring of the plants is approached as an alternative photographic process, where the index of the plants are contained in the canvases. The wool used for embroidery is dyed with oak gall nuts, a recipe used as ink in medieval manuscripts.
This work will be exhibited in De Brakke Grond in Amsterdam in September 2023 during the exhibition 'Enveloped in you' together with works of Ugo Woatzi, Anthony Ngoya and Aurélie Bayad & Günbike Erdemir.
Installation photographs by LNDW Studio