How can we communicate with plants? This is the question that Anais-karenin has consistently pursued through her work and research. She has been practicing medicinal herbs with her own hands since her childhood, connecting with the traditional knowledge of her ancestors from northern Brazil.Her practice begins with leaning herself onto the biosystem of plants, having dialogues with the environments that surround her. It is also an attempt to unravel the perception of the world based on human logic in the modern way, and to open oneself to another perception and thought.
Anais' works, which are based both on her personal experiences as well as on research about philosophy and history around plants, visualize a part of the cosmological association of various phenomena by various agents surrounding plants. However, as you have a closer look into each of them, you will realize that a network which is impossible to grasp or to be described by the word “entire,” is unfolding behind them from a certain moment on. In doing so, she reveals that the term “logical” which we use without any doubts is already human-centric and exposes the fragility of the historical practice of thinking.
Furthermore, her gaze is poured on cultures and histories that plants create, going beyond her personal relationship with them. This exhibition in particular puts a focus on the dark history of manipulation in a colonial context over the original fauna and flora in Brazil. She offers one standpoint on postcolonial issues from an ecological perspective.
Philosopher Emanuele Coccia presents the idea of Metamorphosis that all the organs are in their state of transition, in order to avoid thinking of associations of non-humans within the logical frame of utility and order*. Anais transforms plants and their associations beyond the modern logic into artworks with mysteries. What questions does her practice raise for us at a time full of ecological discourses?
* Coccia, Emanuele, *Métamorphoses*. Rivages, 2020.
Unnamed transiences, 2023.
Installation.
14 acrylic tubes, transparent leafs of various plants mixed, plant’s pigments of various plants mixed
dimensions: #1: 2000x100⌀mm, #2: 2000x100⌀mm, #3: 1010x30⌀mm, #4: 1850x30⌀mm, #5: 1300x25⌀mm, #6: 1115x50⌀mm, #7: 1153x30⌀mm, #8: 1145x25⌀mm, #9: 1010x25⌀mm, #10: 1415x50⌀mm, #11: 1030x25⌀mm, #12: 1160x30⌀mm, #13: 1333x25⌀mm, #14: 1005x30⌀mm.
Where does the spirit of plants reside? Is it possible to find it in color, shape, or is there anything that could spill over through the process of its transition? Plants constantly transform themselves in accordance with their surroundings, such as sunlight and air. They also change the bodies of other beings that digest them. Plants are thus always in the process of transition.
Anais creates artworks practicing traditional knowledge on medicinal herbs from northern Brazil. Referring to such techniques, Unnamed transiences shows the mystery of plants, avoiding the useful perspective towards them. Furthermore, there is no direct relationship between each plant and liquid, which implies complex and mutual associations among them.
- text by Tomoya Iwata
Forest (coffee, sugarcane, tobacco) | 2023
Installation: naturalistic engravings from colonial period on paper, colors on paper, wood, rope, grass, weeds, water system, glass, transparent leafs, leafs pigments | various dimensions
Forest (coffee, sugarcane, tobacco) visualizes a dark history that the environment has been destroyed by colonialism, and the naturalistic logic behind. Coffee, sugarcane, tobacco which are included in the title are famous commodities in Brazil while they are the traces of the past invasion by colonizers. Anais presents the images of leaves and labor landscapes depicted by Western people from that time, as a representation of their violent gaze. This colonial gaze is based on modern logic, backed up by a scientific mindset that attempts to subdivide the object and capture it individually. She suggests the possibility of a complex and rich network surrounding the plants which escapes from such scientific ways of thinking, tracing back their perspectives.
- text by Tomoya Iwata
Ancestralidade: planta | 2023
Sound installation: various plant’s powder, speakers, metal | sound: 9’53”
Rhythms of traditional sounds from northern Brazil, buzz of cicadas which inhabit the region, sounds that translate the frequency of photosynthetic movements of plants connect our present time and environment to another sphere. Ancestralidade: planta, which consists of the mixture of those sounds and an island with powders of plants, makes us aware of the connection between the land and plants, and evokes the cosmological relationship around life underground and in the universe.
- text by Tomoya Iwata
endo Thing | 2021-2023
Leaf pigment in saline solution, stone, acrylic square, metal | various dimensions.
Collaborative work with Silvia Noronha
endo Thing with stones that have absorbed and crystallized the liquid extracted from plants shows a part of natural phenomena in an abstract way. This work questions the notion of plants or stones as an individual entity, and further the perception of organic/inorganic matter, and life/non-life.
- text by Tomoya Iwata
