Phytoglossias Exhibition

We invite you to explore the research exhibition of the project!
ASP Rondo Sztuki Gallery
Rondo gen. Jerzy Ziętek 1, Katowice
Opening: December 6, 2024, at 6:00 PM
Closing: January 30, 2025.

curatorial team: Joanna Soćko, Paweł Szeibel, Joanna Zdzienicka-Obałek
visual identity: Anna Kopaczewska
arrangement: Bartek Buczek

Exhibition Curatorial Text:

Coexistence – as we well know from the experiences of family, social, or professional life – requires wise communication: a continuous practice of listening and expressing oneself. However, concepts such as “conversation” or “communication” are meaningful for us only within the context of the human world. We rightly suspect these categories cannot easily be applied to relationships with our co-inhabitants in the natural universe. This does not mean we can afford to ignore our non-human companions simply because their ways of being and expressing differ from ours.

Phytoglosses intertwine plants (phyto, Greek) with language (glossa, Greek), illustrating our attempts to understand interspecies interactions. A glossa, or commentary, is never part of the main message; by nature, it resides outside the primary text. Yet, it can influence that narrative’s tone, meaning, and interpretation. Occupying the margins, glosses invite dialogue that unfolds outside conventional communication channels. Phytoglosses encourage us to venture further into the wilderness of human speech, to listen to the polyphony of expressions resonating there, and to join fascinating conversations that extend far beyond our assumptions about communication.

The deaf writer, educator, and social activist Helen Keller, as a young girl, communicated with her teacher through tactile gloves imprinted with letters. A breakthrough in her ability to speak came when her teacher led her to a garden water pump. The governess spelt the word “water” by touching Helen’s hand while guiding her other hand under the stream of flowing water. This experience, as Helen later described as an adult, helped her grasp the essence of language. The presence of another person and the sensation of water created a unique fusion of sensory experiences that activated her speech apparatus.

Plants, too, perceive tactile stimuli, though they do not feel pain. They can, however, sense physical stimuli and respond to them. The exhibition highlights the rarely discussed role of the senses and sensory experiences in building plant-human relationships. Observing the artistic and literary works, we discern the various field practices behind them, including the collecting – engaging the sense of touch through the careful selection of specimens of specific species or pressing fingertips to paper to reveal compositions formed by the circular wrinkles of bark. Let’s look at photographically captured portraits of favourite species imbued with an emotional charge of care. Let’s comb through reed tops, leaning them toward the ground with chilled hands. Let’s trace the multi-year process of collecting pine needles. Let’s feel the flexibility of stalks and the texture of knotweed leaves.

Phytoglosses extend these practices, blending artistic perspectives with the post-industrial specificity of local landscapes. The exhibition employs contemporary language and artistic research methods to question the lives of species inhabiting these areas and invites collective discussion around them. Phytoglosses subtly generate dialogues, single signals, and interpretations. They speak of the sensory perceptions of both sides: the plant and the human. Their traces can be discovered through closer interaction with the presented works. When noticed, they serve as threads binding the themes and questions we begin to recognise as we attune ourselves to the messages plants send in our direction. Much like natural light accentuates points in an image, a work, or an object, Phytoglosses weave together the invisible with the tangible, the organic with the fleshy.

The exhibition integrates images, objects, and texts to create an “ecosystem” of diverse, interacting works in which artists and writers explore subtle entanglements and vital connections, forging new communication methods. Seeking areas where symbiosis is possible, participants venture to the margins of civilisation: to post-industrial areas, wastelands, and seemingly redundant corners of our everyday surroundings. In these places, characteristic of our post-industrial locality, we relearn how to reconnect with the returning natural world.