Art Review - The Social Life Of Wallflowers
variegata by Taiessa at Harcourt House Artist Run Centre
Conceptual art is often created out of the desire to learn, to understand, and to honour existing relationships. variegata is one of those exhibitions that was created out of a place of curiosity, despite its ability to touch on more serious topics.
In the main gallery of Harcourt House, the space is brightened by light reflecting off of clear glass bottles and cream-coloured felt plant clippings and propagations. Wooden structures in natural and dark-stained wood provide a stark contrast with the white walls and white plants. Seeking order, the eye is drawn to the wall on the right, where dark-stained shelves are mounted directly onto the wall, displaying neat rows of small glasses of various plant clippings in clear bottles and jars. Leaves spill over the lines of the shelves, and the roots are contained within specimen jars. The plant types are recognizable as plants found in household collections. Running at Harcourt House from October 13-November 25, 2023, this is the last week to see variegata, a year-long culmination of the work of Harcourt House’s 2022-2023 artist-in-residence, Taiessa.
I look closer at the leaves and admire the craftwork - the tiny, delicate stitches that provide structure to the leaves, the sharp angles of new growths, and the curling and ambitious wrapping of roots. The wooden structures resemble terrariums, tables, and research shelves, suggesting a multidisciplinary perspective of plants. Graphite drawings of the plants on paper demonstrate the artist’s attention to visual detail. The plants seem to fill the gallery space, not in a crowded greenhouse kind of way, but more of a large living room kind of way, although none of the plants occupy the lower floor space. All the plants are the types of plants that are rather thick with lush leaves; certainly not native to Alberta. Here we see them only in indoor spaces, usually in domestic places like living rooms or kitchens. The variety of the glass containers and the plants brings in a whimsical, organic feel, but the lack of colour or seating brings in a vaguely sterile feel. The space seems aware of its purpose as an art gallery. The plants are art objects, made by hand for display, developing meaning from presentation as a collective. The structures are arranged in such a way as to invite viewers to mill around the room, observing the view both up close and from across the room.
The artist is Taiessa, a young up-and-coming local artist in Edmonton. She makes the plants by hand, shaping flat felt with a sewing machine and thread. She makes modular components of the plants before assembling several plants at once by hand-sewing and then retains the shape using wheat paste. The resulting plants look soft, but are hard to the touch. The materials are cheap to obtain, but the work is very labour-intensive, with many hours going into the creation of the leaves alone.
How It “Felt”
I enjoy walking among the plants and quizzing myself on what plant is what. My parents are botanists, and if I ask Dad what’s that?, he always gives me the Latin name first. I’ll stare at him blankly and turn to Mom, who gives me the common name. But I can’t seem to remember them unless they have their own stories. What’s that? Arthurium. What’s that? Pothos. What’s that one? Spider plant. What’s that? Monstera. What’s that? Fig, I think. What’s that? I can’t remember, but I remember drawing it once, during my undergrad.
As another layer of narrative coincidence, I had made arrangements to pick up my own clippings from a fellow artist at the opening. I left the show about clippings with a bag full of plant clippings and dreams of building my own shelves to put my plant collection onto!
Plant-demic
Taiessa is a recent graduate from the University of Alberta’s BFA program (2020) and the Fine Art Diploma from MacEwan University (2018). At MacEwan, she made the switch from psychology to art. In both programs, Taiessa built a network of support for her art practice. She finished her academic career in lockdown during the pandemic. Post-graduation, she has participated in local arts organizations and programs and has found work as an art technician at The Works, where she enjoys problem-solving and working with other artists. Her work as an artist, writer, and administrator are all informed by care and reflexivity.
The plants were initially inspired by her experience during the pandemic of keeping plants for company in the living room, trading cuttings and propagations with friends, and researching plant sales and purchases for her collection. Taiessa found the intimate and ritualistic routine of caring for her plants caused her to develop a personal relationship with each plant. As for many of us, caring for plants became an analogy for mental health. The creation of her artwork comes from a place of joy - she enjoys making these despite the intensity of the labour, and her understanding of the work is informed by multidisciplinary research. She used scrap wood to build her own structures to display the clippings. “I don’t feel like myself if I don’t make art,” she told me. She also expressed interest in the social life of plants. She wanted to know how plants traveled, why clippings might cost so much to buy, and the history of plant collection.
Branches of Thought
In my analysis of the work, I find myself observing multiple branches of thought. Two main themes keep popping up. The first is “domesticity” and home. The second is “relationships”.
Perhaps due to my familial bias, my first branch of thought was towards the sciences. The clippings resemble the samples for botany and horticulture that I grew up with. The exhibition title and the exhibition brochure point towards criticism of the colonial nature of plant collection and the literal white-washing of plants bred for the aesthetic of variegata due to their inability to produce chlorophyll.
But Taiessa’s studies of plants are actually more visual and social-oriented. Studying the visual language of plants allows her to perfectly recreate the exact angles of stems and new leaves, making each leaf identifiable to a real plant, but without labeling or naming anything. She leaves it up to the viewer to identify plant types based on the viewer’s own knowledge or experiences (and relationships!) with the same kinds of plants. The other social interactions with plants involve the history of plant collection, historical terrariums, methods of plant collection and transport, the process of keeping them alive, the reciprocal relationship with the plant, the link between plant care and mental health, and the social capital of plants. This research is reflected in the variety of wooden structures that support the plants.
The history of plant collection is quite socially motivated. Plant collection has been around for thousands of years, with the earliest recorded evidence of plant hunting in 1495 BC when botanists were sent to Somalia to collect incense trees for Queen Hatshepsut. Plant collecting saw a boom in the Victorian colonial era. Some plants have been over-collected which led to the extinction or near-extinction of the species. In the Victorian era, plants were collected as a status symbol, with plant collectors going through great physical dangers to collect samples which were often kept in private collections. Conversely, some plants like dandelions or the creeping bellflower have been imported and introduced into new landscapes with no regard for their effect on natural ecosystems. The effects of introducing new plants to landscapes is what my dad researched as a range management scientist, and relates to the role of Border Security services in monitoring plants that come and go across the border.
The plants in the exhibition require indoor care and attention to survive; they are rarely native to the area. What journey did the plants take to get here? How were they transported? Were they gathered for research, decoration, or some other purpose? Were cuttings bred for particular properties or colourations? Were they sold, traded, or given away to new owners? Did they travel? How far? What is the relationship between these plants as alien plants and the native plants that they might threaten? What is the relationship between the plants and their human caretakers? How does the system we live in affect the development of plants?
The Social Life of Houseplants
As a more contemporary interest, Taiessa observed how plants played a significant social role in providing routine and solace during isolation and pandemic lockdowns, as well as in the physical exchange of clippings between individuals. The influence of capitalism is noticeable in the price differences of clippings with variegata, which can affect the overall health of the plant. This results in selective breeding could be analogous to eugenics and colonialism in both people and the natural world. The pandemic is important to the development of the installation, as it made us all re-evaluate how we see the home, domestic life, and relationships. No longer just decorations or status symbols, plants became powerful metaphors for self-care and the cultivation of relationships.
Certainly there are metaphors abound in this collection of felt plants. The colouration and imported status of the felt plants reflect social criticism of whitewashing, colonialism, and capitalism. Caring for plants reflects tenderness towards mental health and domestic concerns. As we spend time with plants, they become characters with their own personalities and reciprocal relationships with the humans who care for them. Ultimately variegata isn’t a collection of fake plants, it’s an active reflection on the social capital and social life of plants.
variegata is up at Harcourt House for the rest of this week.
Freyja T. Catton is a writer, artist, and researcher based in Alberta, Canada. More of their work is available at Wordeater News or on their website, https://thewordeater.com.
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