Franziska Nast

lebende Graslilien, Kunststoffnetz, Offsetdruck auf Fahnenstoff / living Anthericum, plastic net, offset printing on flag fabric

Plants, especially tropical specimens and palm trees, have always been essential companions to me. They grow, even in dry soil, and stand for new beginnings, even if they appear in domesticated form in our latitudes; they are catalysts of longing. I have frequently focused on how plants communicate and what humans can learn from them. What do they stand for, how do they accompany us, how do they change where we live or work? Without plants, it would be cold and desolate here. Do they communicate with each other? What is the interaction between plants and humans? Who influences whom? What levels of meaning and contradictions are revealed? Our houseplants are of course a far cry from the large palm trees. The small mini ficus has nothing to do with the proud, multi-trunked tree several dozen meters high that it really is. Nevertheless, how do we deal with this longing for faraway places, how does it satisfy us? Or is it actually a pitiful picture when plants are domesticated in places that are alien to their species? I have the feeling that plants help us, they are kind of around. (...)These here come from one mother plant. One mother.