Orangeries and palm houses, originally designed to cultivate unknown species in close proximity, have always been places of longing, a room for one‘s own, allowing dreamy journeys to distant worlds as winter gardens and luxurious extensions reserved for only a few people as prestige architecture. In this duality - half garden, half living room - this architectural extension is a refuge and habitat for people and plants in a protected atmosphere. Things can (survive) here that cannot cope with the climate of the northern hemisphere - which is vulnerable and particularly in need of protection. The exhibition “WiNTERS GARDENING” (working title) deals with protective spaces for fragile beings and species - those who, in times of increasing displacement and the threat of political tightening in any direction, particularly fear for their own habitats and niches. Allegorically to the concept of the “winter garden”, Gesa Kolb, Nadjana Mohr, and Darcy Neven thematize the artistic strategies for demarcation against an impending “winter” and seek aesthetic allegories on the theme of the “garden”, its liveliness and diversity. The exhibitions aims to create a space for healing, transition of beings along the connection of the three artistic practices.
In her work, Gesa Kolb (she/her; born 1995 in Wiesbaden) deals with aspects of physicality, spatiality and playing with these. Using found forms and attributions of material properties, she designs installations in space. Her current works revolve around rediscovering and making use of "hobbies" from her childhood, which she integrates into her artistic work with her now adult skills. In her works, Kolb transforms forms or historical elements of the division of space, whereby the viewer's body is repeatedly placed in a relationship between object and space.
Nadjana Mohr (she/her; born 1987 in Bad Soden am Taunus) deals with the body's immaterial relationships and power structures, which can be experienced and understood in her works through materials and interactions with their surfaces. In her current processes, the artist works primarily with tin: a very soft, fragile metal whose surface can be easily scratched and shaped and is particularly good at conducting energy. Mohr sees the metal as a connecting material to the body, as an extension of one's own nerves, which emerge from the body and continue to exist independently as new forms.
Darcy Neven (they/them, born 1991 in Hulsberg) creates rituals to pinpoint moments of transition. Yet maybe the daily moments of care and ritual are what truly marks a Sacred Life. The life you embody when you choose to enter the Adventure of Consciousness. Most of us agree that we love nature, but can we be loved by nature in return? Can we be held? Can we be Mothered? Are we able to surrender to her? True sexual liberation can actually threaten the chains of capitalism, colonialism and patriarchy. Art, sacred sexuality and gardening are therefore my three pillars to start a revolution, in the softest way possible. To question and shift the old paradigms. To let go of old conditioning that doesn’t serve anymore.
curated by Lisa Oord
Orangeries and palm houses, originally designed to cultivate unknown species in close proximity, have always been places of longing, a room for one‘s own, allowing dreamy journeys to distant worlds as winter gardens and luxurious extensions reserved for only a few people as prestige architecture. In this duality - half garden, half living room - this architectural extension is a refuge and habitat for people and plants in a protected atmosphere. Things can (survive) here that cannot cope with the climate of the northern hemisphere - which is vulnerable and particularly in need of protection. The exhibition “WiNTERS GARDENING” (working title) deals with protective spaces for fragile beings and species - those who, in times of increasing displacement and the threat of political tightening in any direction, particularly fear for their own habitats and niches. Allegorically to the concept of the “winter garden”, Gesa Kolb, Nadjana Mohr, and Darcy Neven thematize the artistic strategies for demarcation against an impending “winter” and seek aesthetic allegories on the theme of the “garden”, its liveliness and diversity. The exhibitions aims to create a space for healing, transition of beings along the connection of the three artistic practices.
In her work, Gesa Kolb (she/her; born 1995 in Wiesbaden) deals with aspects of physicality, spatiality and playing with these. Using found forms and attributions of material properties, she designs installations in space. Her current works revolve around rediscovering and making use of "hobbies" from her childhood, which she integrates into her artistic work with her now adult skills. In her works, Kolb transforms forms or historical elements of the division of space, whereby the viewer's body is repeatedly placed in a relationship between object and space.
Nadjana Mohr (she/her; born 1987 in Bad Soden am Taunus) deals with the body's immaterial relationships and power structures, which can be experienced and understood in her works through materials and interactions with their surfaces. In her current processes, the artist works primarily with tin: a very soft, fragile metal whose surface can be easily scratched and shaped and is particularly good at conducting energy. Mohr sees the metal as a connecting material to the body, as an extension of one's own nerves, which emerge from the body and continue to exist independently as new forms.
Darcy Neven (they/them, born 1991 in Hulsberg) creates rituals to pinpoint moments of transition. Yet maybe the daily moments of care and ritual are what truly marks a Sacred Life. The life you embody when you choose to enter the Adventure of Consciousness. Most of us agree that we love nature, but can we be loved by nature in return? Can we be held? Can we be Mothered? Are we able to surrender to her? True sexual liberation can actually threaten the chains of capitalism, colonialism and patriarchy. Art, sacred sexuality and gardening are therefore my three pillars to start a revolution, in the softest way possible. To question and shift the old paradigms. To let go of old conditioning that doesn’t serve anymore.
curated by Lisa Oord