artificial pollination/
искусственное опыление
site-specific installation for The Old Fund Greenhouse of N.V. Tsitsin Main Botanical Garden (RAS)/
инсталляция сайт-специфик для Старой Фондовой Оранжереи Ботанического сада РАН им. Цицина
"Artificial pollination" is a site-specific project co-curated and created by three artists Katya Isaeva, Daria Neretina and Anna Phobia for The Old Greenhouse of N.V. Tsitsin Main Botanical Garden.
The authors of the project explore the context from the perspective of individual perception: historical, aesthetical and social. As a result, a special communication between the space and the objects should appear. Three participants of the project introduce bizarre and fragile ceramic objects, fill the inner space with the sounds of the birds from the past and the present, turn the spotlight on subtle details and “grow” luminous flowers. This is the first collaboration of the Botanical Garden staff with the representatives of contemporary art.
Can one relate the greenhouse to “other spaces”, heterotopian places by Foucault — the author of the philosophical concept of heterotopia, as other, complex places? Or is this a biological interpretation of heterotopy as atypical localization of tissues, in other words, their presence in an unusual place. The artists use both approaches, exploring the functionality of “other spaces” and its penetrability, by testing the objects from the outside to be integrated into such a sublime organization without breaking it.
Katya Isaeva introduces a sound to a usually quiet, silent place - the sounds of the extinct tropical birds as well as a so-called "Birds corner" from the Vietnamese Tao Dan Park. She also brings in the objects /found x-ray prints/ which will try to adapt to the regime existing there.
Daria Neretina installs her new ceramic works into the premises of the former main entrance of the Greenhouse. Thus, a series of unique objects will be mixed with a collection of ceramic pots and botanical "garbage" - byproducts of the plant growing process. The author performs the reassembly of the space moving to the foreground the hidden and plain, redefining, thereby, the criteria of the beautiful.
Anna Phobia works with the light installations. Playing with the scale, she invites the viewer to the journey, as if one had diminished and found oneself on the pages of a biology textbook. Anna's huge luminous flower will bloom and glow in one of the Fund Greenhouse departments.
During 3 months of the project a number of guided tours, a round table and meetings with the workers of the greenhouse took place in the venue.
