Uriel Orlow, Botanical Dreams (7), 2018
Botanical Dreams (7), 2018
Digital print on paper
4 × 55 × 75 cm | 1 9/16 × 21 5/8 × 29 1/2 in.
Edition 2/5 + 2 APs
Certificate provided by the gallery
Paris
€5,000
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About this artwork
In 1963, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the founding of Kirstenbosch, the national botanical garden of South Africa in Cape Town commissioned a series of films to document the history of the garden, and the jubilee celebrations with their ‘national’ dances, pantomimes of colonial conquests, and visits of international botanists. The films’ protagonists of scientists, visitors etc. are all white - the only Africans featured are laborers.
Considered neutral and passive, flowers were excluded from the boycott until the late 1980s and so botanical nationalism and flower diplomacy flourished unchecked at home and internationally.
The films have not been seen since 1963 and were found by the artist in the cellar of the library of the botanical garden.
To produce the Botanical Dreams series, Orlow collaborated with South African actress Lindiwe Matshikiza who puts herself and her body in these loaded pictures, inhabiting and confronting the found footage and thus contesting this history and the archive itself. In these photographs, the actress’ black body is intimately linked with the flowers from Kirstenbosch in a process of re-appropriation.
More artworks by Uriel Orlow
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Uriel Orlow Botanical Dreams (2), 2018
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Uriel Orlow Botanical Dreams (3), 2018
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Uriel Orlow Botanical Dreams (4), 2018
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Uriel Orlow Botanical Dreams (5), 2018
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