Marianne Skjeldal / Inger-Reidun Olsen
Pollinary Dances - Plant Parcell Activation Scores
The plant parcels in the foyer are satellites to the coming garden wall. The plant parcels are meant for you as an invitation to engage with plants, care and hope in these precarious times, as an ongoing tender laboratory. Supported by two plant alchymists, spagyric elixirs will also be made from the foyer herb garden.
The term ‘Pollinary Dances’ also refers to artistic ‘scores’ known in choreographic practice; (Ref. Merce Cunningham, Anna Halprin, Simone Forti, Yvonne Reiner and many more.) When we write that we will 'choreograph' the garden and enter into a dialogue with it and 'cultivate it through scores', we are inspired by artists who worked 100 years back in time, including the Russian avant-garde artists who lived and worked in the old wooden house (which today is the Museum of Avantgarde Art). Mathiyushin, Malevich and Guro amongst others had a close relationship with the garden in their artistic research. Many of the theories related to nature and the meaning of colors have their origin in this particular garden. We are also inspired by Emma Kunz, (Swiss artist and healer), who is known for amongst other things using the pendulum on plants so that they could shoot up to 15 new flower buds out of their flower head. Relating to such ideas, we develop Pollinary Dances as various choreographic ‘scores’, which are aimed at the plants in the garden. Scores can act as small 'recipes', where you perform small actions. Pollinary Dances will also consist of a card deck, where the various scores are presented as suggestions, but where other artists and other visitors are invited to participate and write / draw down in a logbook what they have done for the plants to make them grow/ dance etc. or what the plants tell or teach them. In this way, we open up the garden projects to become collective collaborations, not unlike a pollination process. The garden will be open to everyone.
This project is part of CoSA-Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Part 2, 2018-2021.
The ‘Pollinary Dances - Plant Parcel Activation Scores’ is supported by: Norwegian Arts Council, Oslo Kommune Grønne Midler, Bydel Grünerløkka and Black Bos teater.