A diary of interviews by Setareh Noorani

A DIARY OF

ORTO BOTANICO, PALERMO OKT. 2017 - JAN. 2018

INTERVIEW [NOUN] 1. (obsolete) An official face-to-face meeting of monarchs or other important figures. [16th-19th c.] VIEW [NOUN] 1. An instance of seeing or beholding; visual inspection. 2. A sight or prospect of a landscape, the sea, etc. 3. A picture or photograph of something. 4. A particular manner of looking at something. 5. Contemplation or consideration of a matter with reference to action.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION: A LISTENING EAR

A VIVID HISTORY OF ENLIGHTENMENT IN THE ORTO BOTANICO LINNAEUS AND DA UCRIA

MAPPING DIVERSITY

INTERVIEWS

INSTALLATION: A LISTENING EAR

A Diary of Interviews

ENTRANCE ORTO BOTANICO 1820 - 1920

A Diary of Interviews

INTRODUCTION A LISTENING EAR

A Diary of Interviews

Delft and Palermo 30 nov. 2017 - 30 dec. 2017

Palermo, a city drenched in glorious decay, an attraction for a multitude of visitors. From traders to the Grand Tourists to cosmopolitans and migrants, various groups of people have intersected Palermo. Within the theme of Manifesta 12, Radical Gardening, a garden is a way to explain and tend to the commons and in this case, a way to explain or change the perspective on influential societal matters in Palermo. When the Orto Botanico came to my attention as a possible subject of study, it never came to my mind that this part of the city could be so rich in stories and this intensely interwoven with the history of Palermo. During the first days of my stay in Palermo, I sensed my premeditated proposals change under the influence of the impressions I experienced in real time. The Orto Botanico, the botanical garden, could indeed be seen as a metaphor for the intersecting routes of people, in the same way as they have crossed paths from the age of Enlightenment and Colonialism up to this date. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Botanical gardens from all over Northern Europe sent plants to Palermo that would otherwise have perished in colder climesâ&#x20AC;? (Frustrated Gardener ). Understanding the upward battle of empiric science, and the obsession it created to classify and collect species in the founding years of the botanical garden was an important key. This key helped to unlock the layers of acts against the plants or, as I will call them from now on, the citizens in the botanical garden. The Orto Botanico hosts many of these imported citizens: foreign seeds, rare plants, and pseudoindigenous species, who have been renamed and ordered in rigid assemblies, much alike blocks in a larger city. A Diary of Interviews

One neighborhood of this botanical city is the Linnaean section, one of the first areas to be constructed within the period of Enlightenment. Science in that time was the ultimate tool to understand the (new) world from the scale from Man. Other examples of clasifications within the Orto Botanico are the sections of Engler and the Useful Plants area. The classification of the botanist Carl Linnaeus formed the inspiration for the rigid structure of the Linnaean section designed by the monk Da Ucria. In the 18th century, Linnaeus formalized the binomial nomenclature. The naming system introduced a new idea, which the names could be trivial and simply seen as a label, making them easier to remember. Da Ucria implemented the ideas of Linnaeus. By laying out the grid of this section with his system, he took us along in a dream of understanding and simplifying the unknown. The connection is made between Linnaeus as a botanist and Da Ucria as a botanist and designer, digging deeper into a need for simplicity in order. The act of displacing, formalizing, and renaming was the pre-condition of the later act of objectification, domination and colonization. The citizens in the Linnaean section were for example organized along a perfect grid. Over time, some original citizens within that section took over more than their designated terrain and some surfaced spontaneously. Others however could not make it to our current age (Cassandra Funsten). This process of eradicating their origin happened due to the will of Man to order nature and misunderstanding it along this path of reasoning. It shows the confusion and misplaced hostility towards foreign influences in the name of science. 13

With this project, I attempt to lay beside me the role of (pseudo-)scientist and take up the position of the architect as listening ear. Listening, conversing, and informing myself, without judging, enabled me throughout this journey to collect evidences for the acts against the citizens and to voice their current state. By no means do I pretend to be a botanist either and some elements in the interviews signify the willingness to acquire more knowledge in this area. These conversations and observations have also shown me the fragility of Palermitan identity in general, of which the long need for the city to establish their own institutions and get recognition for these is a part of the fight.

can think about the triviality of naming and classifying citizens as objects, and with this change in perception my work is fulfilled.

This booklet accompanying the videoinstallation is built up as a diary of interviews, a diary of conversations even. The diary as a form of collecting anecdotes, or investigating, rose in popularity in the Renaissance, when the personality of the individual began to be stressed. In this diary, we begin with the inevitable histories to paint a picture of the triumph of science in Enlightenment and the interpersonal frictions of lost faiths. Then I found it necessary to make an overview of the diversity in the Linnaean section, a beautiful and tragic collision of identities. Afterwards, the sections of interviews give a glimpse into the various voices and opinions on this life in the Linnaean section. The booklet ends with stills from the video-installation Listening Ear. Via the diverse viewpoints of protagonist and environment, we can ponder on proposing different perspectives of living in Palermo and finding root. To propose a different type of awareness in science and architecture. We

A Diary of Interviews

I would like to express gratitude to the artists and researchers I have written and interviewed, Manlio Speciale and Paolo Inglese from the Orto Botanico, the organization of Manifesta 12 for their great curation of our Palermitan field trip, my fellow students in the Complex Projects course, and my tutors Ippolito and Paul.

A Diary of Interviews

MAPS 1860 - 2018 16

A Diary of Interviews

H ow ever, the S w e d i s h b o t a n i s t C a r l Li nna eus p r oved t o t a k e t h e u r g e to r esol ve thi s fr u s t r a t i o n t o a n e w l evel . H e sa w i t as h i s l i f e t a s k t o b r i ng or d er to the w o r l d , a n d a s one of hi s stud ent s l a t e r w r o t e â&#x20AC;&#x153; h i s a m bi ti ons p r oved l i m i t l e s s â&#x20AC;?

A Diary of Interviews

A VIVID HISTORY OF ENLIGHTENMENT IN THE ORTO BOTANICO LINNAEUS AND DA UCRIA

A Diary of Interviews

Delft and Palermo 18 nov. 2017 - 02 jan. 2018

Palermo is a city where its history is visible in everyday life, where stories can be traced back, although with varying effort yet always starting by offering a listening ear. The history of the Orto Botanico has turned out to be intensely intertwined with the history of Enlightenment in Palermo and the personal histories of the leading botanists of that time, Linnaeus and Da Ucria. Nobility, clergy, and royalty alike strived to organize the world, understand it, and with this force shape their society. Hunting for rarities in faraway colonies for various reasons also entailed the boom in Grand Tours, and journeys for plant hunting and categorization. Understanding this obsession and the paradigm change it unleashed is essential to form a background to the constitution of the Linnaean section in the Orto Botanico and to form an opinion on the plant citizenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s journey. The Orto Botanico in Palermo was officially inaugurated in December 1795 , a time characterized by the large shifts in societal thinking propelled by science. This was also the time that the Europeans were gradually getting more familiar with â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;the new worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, due to the many travels funded by the reigning royals. Not only did they seek to enlarge their territories, they also found many treasures abroad, such as precious metals and spices but also plants, that could give their empires much wealth. It was a new time dominated by the power of Man. The first excursions, which delivered the collections of unknown plant species led to the need of places to exhibit and research them. Botanical gardens were as much a Wunderkammer as the early private collections that turned out to be our contemporary museums. Species common to us nowadays, were carried as precious stones to Europe and A Diary of Interviews

given to the care of botanists. An example is the Hydrangea macrophylla commonly called Mophead; the Dutch know it as Hortensia, brought in 1788 from Far Asia by the English botanist Joseph Banks. The issue of all these new species was not only that the botanists needed to travel further to quench the thirst of their clients, but also that the herbaria grew to chaotic proportions and a growing confusion over what to call those plants, all due to conflicting and outdated naming systems.

The issue of all these new species was not only that the botanists needed to travel further to quench the thirst of their clients, but also that the herbaria grew to chaotic proportions and a growing confusion over what to call those plants, all due to conflicting and outdated naming systems. Except for the common names used in the countries of origin, the settlers, collectors, and botanists all used different indications for the plants. Widespread in Europe were the naming systems of Ray and Tournefort. 27

John Ray was an English naturalist, who lived from 1627 until 1705. He was one of the first clerics who saw his work as a botanist as an extension of his task on Earth, which was collecting, classifying, and understanding Gods creation. Ray and other contemporaries argued that the existence of such complexity was the evidence of intelligent creation. However, such notions intertwining religion with science proved to form an obstacle for later botanists when they tried to explain new observations. Ray’s taxonomy was based on observation of plants, collected from his long tours throughout Europe, classifying them for the first time in species. The importance of his work is also confirmed through his affiliation with the Royal Society. Associations like the Royal Society existed throughout Europe and were paramount in the spread of science and knowledge across borders. At the same time, Tournefort (1656-1708) conducted roughly similar travels and was then the first to discern the concept of genus in a clear manner, which was adopted by many contemporaries. Yet, the system of Tournefort proved to be a step backwards, as it ignored classifications devised earlier by other botanists, even the binary nomenclature, which was advocated August Bachmann. The problem of naming remained to exist for decades. However, the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus proved to take the urge to resolve this frustration to a new level. He saw it as his life task to bring order to the world, and as one of his students later wrote “his ambitions proved limitless”. Exactly this drive was needed to

confront and convert the rigid, omnipresent, outdated systems. Linnaeus grew up in a middle-class family. His father was another in a long line of priests, an amateur botanist and a Lutheran minister. His mother was the daughter of the rector of Stenbrohult church. His interest in plants sprouted from an early age on, which was furthered in his education as well as the study of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. He was exceptional in his studies of which he was well aware, often boasting to other and recording this fact in his dictated biography. Linnaeus then continued to give lectures at a young age at the Uppsala University, until his excursion to Lapland where he began to develop his revolutionary system. His work Systema Naturae then proposed a revolutionary idea of classifying plants along their sexual reproductive system in 24 classes. In this work, he also formalized the binomial nomenclature, which was sporadically adopted by botanists until then. Prior to Linnaeus the binomials were rather polynomial Latin

Prior to Linnaeus the binomials were rather polynomial Latin descriptions of observations. Linnaeus pruned these to the use of a one-word ‘trivial’ name and another part of the binomial name. A Diary of Interviews

descriptions of observations. Linnaeus pruned these to the use of a one-word ‘trivial’ name and another part of the binomial name. The use of the trivial name introduced the idea that the name could be simply a label. Naming and classification in genus were hereafter separated. After the publication of Systema Naturae the task for Linnaeus had just begun. By trying to push the classification further based on sexual reproduction of plants, he encountered religious resistance. Sexual reproduction in plants, counting stems, seeing them as often nonmonogamous husbands and wives, shocked the scientific world. Linnaeus had early encouragement from Dutch botanists in Leiden, such as Gronovius and Hartekamp, where such matters were confronted in a more lenient fashion. Even the botanists and enthusiasts in the Americas were more accepting of this efficient system. The challenge lay in convincing English botanists, who then were considered as the most influential in Europe. One of them, the keeper of the Chelsea Physic Garden and member of the Royal Society, Phillip Miller proved to be the key in turning around the minds of the English. Miller was the author of the then most popular book in gardening, the Dictionary. It was written in English, easy to understand for people from all layers of society, and it contained simple instructions on how to care for specific plants. However, the plants were indicated with polynomials or by Tourneforts system. To convince Miller to use the Linnaean system in a new edition would mean the spread of the system in every household. The first edition of

A Diary of Interviews

the Dictionary was printed in 1731 and it took until the edition in 1768 to incorporate Linnaeus’ system and rearrange the Chelsea Physic Garden along that manner. In the same time, Italy did not abstain from the influence of Enlightenment. Cities with great universities, like Naples, remained centers of intellect after the great change the Renaissance brought. The Church and the royal influence of the Habsburg family however were omnipresent in Italy, leading a regime of intellectual censorship. Italy was divided after the death of the Spanish Habsburg king Charles II. Sicily was handed over to Victor Amadeus II, duke of Savoy , who then had to give Sicily back to the new Bourbon king of Spain, Philip V in 1734. Years later, Ferdinand III, the grandson, had gained the reign over Naples and his descendants named the accumulated territory the Kingdom of Two Sicilies. Enlightenment was thus not just a question of furthering a better understanding of the world, based on science; it was also a resistance against the oppression of Church and Kingdom and a growth in political and societal identity. The

It was also a resistance against the oppression of Church and Kingdom and a growth in political and societal identity

north and the south were very different, not only in government but also in economic wealth. This became especially apparent after the famines in 1763-1767. In this period, the enlightened people of the higher classes gathered in their Villas to discuss matters of politics, economics, and science. They welcomed artists and writers on their tours through Italy and organized themselves in societies, alike the British Royal Society. Tensions arose between the bourgeoisie and the aristocracies, and took a turn especially against the foreign oppressors. In this climate of new philosophical and political thought, and the aforementioned obsession in organizing the new worlds, cultural and scientific institutions blossomed and new ones came to life. They focused themselves very much on the interchange of knowledge and the elaboration of independency by studying their history and heritage. The founding of the University of Palermo in 1779 by the Bourbon king sped up the set-up of these institutions. Among the first was the predecessor of the Orto Botanico in 1781, led by the council of Natural History and Botany, and the Observatory in 1789. In these turbulent times, Friar Bernardino da Ucria (1739-1796) lived. He would turn out to be one of the most influential botanists in Sicily. Unlike Linnaeus, he grew up as in sober circumstances and until he joined the monastery in Palermo in 1766. There he developed his interest in botany, but he proved already to be someone with a particular keen mind in his studies of medicine and his prior scholarship

in the studio of painter Vito dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Anna. This combination of a cleric studying natural sciences was already mentioned with the example of John Ray. In 1786, Da Ucria was appointed as botanist for the University of Palermo and was heavily involved in the establishment of the Orto Botanico. The Linnaean classification was in that time widespread and Da Ucria was a keen student of Linnaeus. He constituted the first section of the Orto Botanico along this principle. The plants in this section were brought over from the earlier patch of land of the University. Later foreign botanical gardens sent their specimen to Palermo. Consequent publications of Da Ucria contained not only the Linnaean name, but also those in the Italian and Sicilian dialect. The plant citizen in the Linnaean section is thus not only a foreigner from a faraway land, an object of desire, confusion, and frustration; it is also a witness of a greater history of the triumph of reason, the domination of man over the natural world, and the awareness of an Italian, or Sicilian, identity.

The plant citizen is also a witness of a greater history of the triumph of reason, the domination of man over the natural world, and the awareness of an Italian, or Sicilian, identity. A Diary of Interviews

History of the Orto Botanico http://www.ortobotanico.unipa.it/ storia.html The Brother Gardeners, Andrea Wulf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ray https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Pitton_de_Tournefort https://www.britannica.com/place/Italy/Reform-andEnlightenment-in-the-18th-century http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/bernardino-da-ucria_ (Dizionario-Biografico)/

A Diary of Interviews

MAPPING DIVERSITY

A Diary of Interviews

Origins of the citizens in the Linnaean section, based on OMA Palermo Atlas p. 12

A Diary of Interviews

map of palermo’s gardens, parks, and nurseries, with collections related to the orto botanico Compiled from Botanical Wonders by G. Barbera and M. Speciale, map by M. Carta

1 Orto Botanico Via Lincoln

2 Villa Giulia

Via Lincoln

3 Giardino Garibaldi Piazza Marina

4 Parco della Favorita Piazza Leoni

5 Villa Malfitano Via Dante 167

6 Villa Trabia Via A. Salinas 3

7 Giardino Inglese Via Libertà

8 Parco del Principe del Castelnuovo Viale del Fante 66

9 Giardino del Palazzo dei Normanni Piazza Indipendenza

10 Fossa della Garofala Viale delle Scienze

11 Vivai Lo Porto

Corso Calatafimi 262

12 Villa Tasca

Viale Regione Siciliana 442

13 Villa d’Orléans Corso Re Ruggero

14 Maredolce Via Giafar

A Diary of Interviews

Structure of the neighborhood of the Linnaean section, street axis, superblock, block, plot

A Diary of Interviews

Nationalities of the 1st quarter of the Linnaean section

A Diary of Interviews

クサマキ (Kusamaki) Desert Fan Palm 竹 (Zhu)

山指甲 (shan zhi jia) 桂花 (gui hua)

3a Fila 5 sand coprosma

Aiuola 12a 1a Fila

3a Fila 1 Eastern Gamagrass

Aiuola 6a 1a Fila 1 暴马丁香 (bao ma ding xiang) 3a Fila 1 carrizo 2 cortadera

Aiuola 10a 1a Fila 4 ススキ (susuki)

Aiuola 5a 1a Fila 1 Mannai Hamu

2a Fila 1 guayabi

Aiuola 13a 1a Fila 3 牛奶子 (niu nai zi)

3a Fila 1 长白忍冬 (chang bai ren dong) 2 オオチョウジガマズミ (Oochoujigamazumi) 3 郁香忍冬 (yu xiang ren dong)

Aiuola 9a 1a Fila 1 unGqeba 2 Khas 3 牛奶子 (niu nai zi)

4a Fila 1 Senjed 2 Norge gran

Aiuola 17a 2a Fila 6 ombú

2a Fila 4 chak-nich’maax

Aiuola 16a 1a Fila 1 厚壳树 (hou ke shu) 2 watakeli

Aiuola 15a 2a Fila 4 ubovu

4a Fila 1 pavettai 4 goda 5 hobble-bush

Aiuola 14a 1a Fila 2 anfar 4 guevin

silky oak 粉团 (fen tuan)

4a Fila 1 Barilla de India

4a Fila 1 引种苗圃 (yin zhong miao pu) 2 大叶胡颓子 (da ye hu tui zi) 3 Common name not found

1 2

3a Fila 1 mandimbo

2 huo’ótobo 3 Common name not found

3a Fila 1 chichicuáhuitl

Aiuola 11a 2a Fila 2 木半夏 (mu ban xia)

2a Fila 1 金花忍冬 (jin hua ren dong) 2 тартановая жимолость

Aiuola 8a

4a Fila 1 narkhat

Aiuola 7a 1a Fila 1 lenchrus 2 sereh 3 荻 (di)

4a Fila 1 小叶女贞 (xiao ye nu zhen) 2 ネズミモチ (Nezumimochi) 3 雪柳 (xue liu)

2 3

2a Fila 3 higuillo de hoja menuda 4 jaborandi-manso 5 parí paroba

Aiuola 4a 1a Fila 1 igqwanxe 2 盈江素馨 3 Wavy Leafed Cape Olive

1 2 3

Aiuola 3a 1a Fila

1a Fila 1 Pino Canario 2 榧 (kaya) 3 Pinheiro da Terra

2a Piazzetta

Quartino 1 Aiuola 1a 1 American Yew

Registro dei Quartini Phone book register

Aiuola 22a 3a Fila 3 Qat

Aiuola 20a 2a Fila 1 kraalkriedoring

Aiuola 19a 3a Fila 4 滇刺棗 (dian ci zao)

2a Fila 2 umVusamvu 3a Fila 2 āhuēhuētl

Aiuola 18a 1a Fila 1 Αλεξανδρινή δάφνη 3 海桐 (hai tong)

A Diary of Interviews

Nationalities of the 2nd quarter of the Linnaean section

A Diary of Interviews

Fila Intermedia 1 Thorny Locust

Aiuola 2A Fila 1A 1 Drago De Canarias

Fila 2A 1 Морская Лаванда

Aiuola 7A Fila 1A 1 柽柳 (Chengliu) 6 Chitrak

4A Fila 1 Umxhalagube

Aiuola 5A 1A Fila 4 通脱木 (Tong Tuo Mu)

Fila 3A 3 Mano De Oso

3A Fila 2 Roman Candle

Aiuola 9A Fila 1A 3 樟叶木防己 (Heng Zhou Wu Yao)

3A Fila 2 Tasabia 4A Fila 3 A’e

2A Fila 1 Jaborandi

Aiuola 8A Fila 1A 1 Клекачка Перистая 4 复羽叶栾树 (Fu Yu Ye Luanshu) 5 Reetha

3 Umsinsana 5 Joshua Tree

Fila 3A 2 Fonoll Marí 3 Bounafa

Fila 3A 1 Saging

Aiuola 1A Fila 1A

Registro dei Quartini Phone book register

2A Fila 5 南天竹 (Nan Tian Zhu)

Aiuola 14A 1A Fila 2 Ban Chutro

4A Fila 2 何首乌 (He Shou Wu)

3A Fila 3 Pohuehue 5 Vono Ni Vavalangi

Aiuola 13A 1A Fila 1 Ban Chutro 2 华南十大功劳 (Huanan Shi Da Gonglao)

Aiuola 12A 4A Fila 2 Ambar-Baris

4A Fila 6 Inhlaba

Aiuola 11A 1A Fila 3 Ti Kauka 5 Palmella 6 Igitongati

Aiuola 17A 1 茶条槭 (Cha Tiao Qi) 2 Érable De Montpellier 3 Arce Menor

4A Fila 4 Bagnaka

3A Fila 4 Ombú

2A Fila 2 Tilo

Aiuola 18 Fila 1A 4 Тюркский Кустарниковый Клен

4A Fila 3 Moqqan

Aiuola 16A Fila 4A 1 Nahosh

3A Fila 5 erenoa

Aiuola 24A 2A Fila 3 Umunwe

Aiuola 22A 4 Somui

Aiuola 21A

3A Fila 1 Umkokoko 4 Albero Di Giuda

3A 4 新木姜子属 (Xin Mu Jiang Zi Shu)

Aioula 19 Fila 1A 5 Huizaa 2A Fila 1 Corakapatra Aiuola 20 Fila 2A 2 ‫יאופר הנבל‬

Aiuola 15A 1A Fila 2 Hab-Ul-Ghar

4A Fila 2 Baloot

A Diary of Interviews

Nationalities of the 3rd

quarter of the Linnaean section

A Diary of Interviews

Aiuola 6A 1A Fila 6

Aiuola 5A 4A Fila 1 ‫خی لگ‬ 2 标本园 (Biao Ben Yuan) 4 Sweetshrub

4A Fila 5 马醉木 (Ma Zui Mu)

2A Fila 5 ‫رانا‬

Aiuola 4A 1A Fila 3 Mirto

3A Fila 1 Mirto 2 Goiaba 4 Araçá-Rosa

2A Fila 2 Pitanga 4 Ñangapiré 5 Goiabeira

Aiuola 2A 1A Fila 3 Palma Canaria 4 Bibby Tree

Aiuola 9A 1A Fila 3 American Basswood

4A Fila 1 扁担杆属 (Bian Dan Gan Shu)

3A Fila 4 紫薇 (Zi Wei)

Aiuola 8A 2A Fila 5 Celinda

4A Fila 2 石楠 (Shi Nan) 3 シャリンバイ (Sharinbai) 5 Kamini

2A Fila 3 マルバウツギ (Marubautsugi)

2A Fila 4 Спирея Aiuola 7A 1A Fila 1 ウツギ (Utsugi) 3 长柱溲疏 (Chang Zhu Sou Shu) 5 マルバウツギ (Marubautsugi)

Kaayalakkamaram

Registro dei Quartini Phone book register Large-Leaved

4A Fila 1 Bwa Jón

Aiuola 11A 2A Fila 1 Kacar 3 Jacarandá

4A Fila 1 Araticum-Mirim 3 Coração-De-Boi 5 Chirimuya

2A Fila 2 Hoang Bi

Aiuola 10A 1A Fila 1 紫薇 (Zi Wei)

4A Fila 1 Aatunocci 3 Dok Pha Nok 4 大叶紫珠 (Dai Ye Zi Zhu) 5 Taramah 6 Sabar Besi

2A Fila 2 American Beauty-Berry

4 Lime 4A Fila 1 Northern Kurrajong 2 Broad-Leaved Bottle Tree

3A Fila 2 梧桐 (Wu Tong)

Aiola 16A 1A Fila 1 Catawba 4 Ubuhlungubemamba

4A Fila 5 Rohitakalata

3A Fila 1 黄荆 (Huang Jing)

Aiuola 14A 2A Fila 4 Diveanta

3A Fila 1 Cay Lai

Aiuola 13A 2A Fila 2 龙眼 (Long Yan)

2A Fila 1 Kurrajong 2 蘋婆 (Ping Po)

Aiuola 18A 1A Fila 2 Paineira

4A Fila 3 Tipa 4 Frijolito

3A Fila 1 槐树 Huai Shu

2A Fila 2 Keeyamlei

Aiuola 17A 4A Fila 1A Fila 4 Raimu Niya 2 Sisau 6 Lantana Rastrera 3 Alecrín

3A Fila 4 Imvovo 6 Erva De Fogo

Aiuola 12A 1A Fila 1 Littleleaf Linden 3 Hollandse Linde

Aiuola 22A 4A Fila 4 Peladera

Aiuola 20A 4A Fila 2 Espinillo

3A Fila 2 Kher

Aiuola 19A 1A Fila 1 Mubungati 3 Choipang 4 Guamo 5 Mfuranje

A Diary of Interviews

Nationalities of the 4th quarter of the Linnaean section

A Diary of Interviews

4A Fila 4 シロヨモギ (Shiroyomogi)

Aiuola 5A 1A Fila 1 Topinambour 5 Árbol Maravilla

Aiuola 4A 4A Fila 1 Adi Dəvədabanı

3A Fila 3成批 (Chen Pi)

2A Fila 1 Pomerans

Aiuola 2A 1A Fila 1 ‫هرهزرخ‬ 4 Umnduze

3A Fila 1 Krôôch Loving 4 ルミー (Rumii)

Aiuola 1A 2A Fila 1 Ab-I-Turanj

Registro dei Quartini Phone book register

A Diary of Interviews

INTERVIEWS

A Diary of Interviews

Palermo 26 nov. 2017 - 03 dec. 2017

On my journey towards understanding that small city in Palermo, I have encountered many figures who offered me food for thought, some deeper insight in the situation, and a listening ear when voicing my lostness in translation. In this section, I have chosen not to diversify between artists, landscape architects whose projects inspired me, and the citizens whose everyday reality has become the circumference of the Linnaean section. The citizens of the Linnaean section have found root away from their countries of origin. A journey which began maybe centuries ago, or decades, or months. Renamed to recognize, transported as goods, cared for as precious objects, yet has anyone seen them as the individuals they are? If you spend a few hours walking around in the narrow streets of Linnaeus, you hear the cars racing by, beeping, speeding. You notice quarrels between birds, playful or angry. Then the wind picks up and the breeze sways the citizens. Some touch lightly, a small greeting. Others are heavy intertwined in a dependent love affair. If you make yourself small enough, creep up closely, with an ear to the bark or a nose on a leaf, it is noticeable that indeed the citizens have a world of their own and a multitude of stories to tell. Notes: The interviewees are often signified with abbreviations. SN always indicates my own name. The interviews are directly transcribed and minimally edited.

A Diary of Interviews

Villa Tasca, 1909, Wilhelm von Gloeden 54

A Diary of Interviews

VILLA TASCA Cassandra Funsten

researcher viale Regione Siciliana, 399, Palermo, 29 nov. 2017

CF: In the garden this is the section that is called the acclimatization section. This is the section that was built especially for exotic plants and plants that weren’t seen in Palermo before. That was possible because Palermo is very sheltered, so even on the island of Sicily it has an especially mild climate. It is much closer to subtropical than Mediterranean. So all of these plants that were coming back from the age of Imperialism, where the great powers of Europe were setting up colonies in South Africa, Australia. The opium wars were breaking open East Asia, China, and Japan. So all of these plants were coming back to Palermo through Germany, through Great Britain, because their botanical gardens would send samples to the botanical garden in Palermo. Then this association where Lucio Massimo Giovanni Tasca was one of the heads was working to spread these plants throughout the nobilities’ gardens and the public gardens of the city. He was an especially illuminated man. Very intelligent, not just in ornamental plants, but also in agriculture. He was also the first person to experiment with using American rootstock, with European grape varieties, because there was a pest. CF: …We have an idea of what those gardens were like, because they were part of the same association. They were all…everybody was working together and trading plants. So if I need to replant a Fichus, if it’s died and […]. It’s an important part of that garden then I would want to take a cutting from this Fichus for example or the one in the botanical garden, so that I have the same genetic clone of the same type, the variety that was in the historic garden and to not just buy a new plant from the nursery.

CF: The oldest tree in the botanical garden is 200 years old. So this tree is probably 150 years old. CF: The romantic garden is built as a yin yang. So, this is the masculine side of the garden with the patriarch and the great pine tree, Pinus Pinea. Where if you go around any historic estate you usually see this huge pine palm, because they are a symbol of the patriarch, male fertility, of lots of good things. And so this is the masculine side of the garden, where we have sunlight, at least the way that he designed it. There was sunlight and there is science, because this is the acclimation garden. On the other side of the garden, we’ll see the female part of the garden. We’ll see how those two archetypes… CF: …so the Freemasonry which was male dominated, only male dominated. And Maria, the queen Maria Carolina, became very… she wanted to be an enlightened ruler before her sisters head got cut off, and then she completely swung the other way… SN: okay… CF: and became violently anti-illuminist. SN: Yeah, because I’m interested in the Enlightenment and the bringing into order as the predecessor of the colonial approach, which is once you bring something into order then you can dominate it, because you get to know it. Then you superpose your own principles to it, which is also a way of making a garden and tending to a garden. CF: Of course, yeah. This is very much linked to the botanical garden. CF: We have the Drachea Draco, which comes

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from the Canary Islands, was used as a colorant for women’s make up. For all kinds of things to date. It’s still used to give that nice red color to a violin. For example next to it, is the [?] which comes from Central America, Livingstona Chinensis which comes from Asia. We also have South Africa here, with the Giant Bird of Paradise… CF: Here we have Argentina, the [?], so just like where we are standing the whole world is represented! And all of these plants, or many of these plants were brought here not just to be ornamental plants, but to be industrial products. So the Drachea is a colorant, the [?] was used for upholstery, because it’s fruit is full of this white fluff. It was used extensively up until the mid1900s because it’s highly flammable. Which for now we don’t use it as upholstery anymore.

“So just like where we are standing the whole world is represented!” CF: The Drachea for example is cutting out all of the sunlight from the cactus garden, because it wasn’t expected to get that large, because it rarely grows that large in the Canary Islands. The Canary Islands is less hospitable than Palermo. Palermo has an advantage of not having a lot of rainfall, but having a huge amount of spring water. Especially this garden.

and also meeting at Garibaldi. And so these plants didn’t have the problems that they would have in a climate with a lot of rainfall, but their taproots tap in to the aquifer, and so they just blew up! They’re all bloated! And so this is why for example this plant became so large and now we have a problem here. Our sun garden is no longer very sunny! But if we change it then that ruins the whole yin yang pattern of the garden and so we have to decide what to prune, what to sacrifice to change species to more shade loving plants. SN: Also this type of cactus tree…? CF: It’s a Euphorbia, not a cactus tree. SN: Uh, Euphorbia? CF: Euphorbias come from Africa. Cactus comes from the Americas. SN: And why does the tree look like this? Does it have the same inner content as a cactus, or… CF: Yes, it’s called a parallel morphology. When you have two groups of plants that are in no way related to each other, but they evolve to be physically very similar because they have evolved in similar conditions. And an important thing where you can recognize an Euphorbia is because of the thorns. The thorns on a cactus are round; they are in a circular pattern. On a Euphorbia they’re like horns, they’re being in twos or fours, but they are always linear. And it’s important to tell the difference, because a cactus has water inside. Euphorbia has toxic sap.

This whole area from Palazzo dei Normani up until Monreale is full of springs, because there were four underground rivers coming to Palermo

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Notes: Nurseries and other gardens (all over the world) are intertwined with the history of the O.B. The plan of the garden versus the natural plan of plant growth

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ORTO BOTANICO Cassandra Funsten

researcher via Lincoln, 2, Palermo, 29 nov. 2017

CF: … because the botanical garden and the university were one and the same thing. This was the first site of the university in Palermo and it was the school property and Mensa. And so he [Da Ucria] was doing three jobs basically, but he was paid much less than a professor would have been because he was only a monk. He wasn’t a nobleman and when he finished, he lost all of his position. He expected to become the director of the botanical garden, but that position was given to a nobleman. And so there is this poem by Giovanni Mendi (?), that describes him looking on from a carriage that goes in front of the botanical garden during the inauguration, which was in winter and leaving a curse on the botanical garden. He died the year afterward. SN: It was literally his life work?

everybody there was a nobleman. And they’re called the (?), this order. Whereas Da Ucria was a Franciscan monk, the people in that order were particularly poor. He was actually an orphan, that was homeless for a few years in Palermo. He was really intelligent and he had knowledge from different jobs. He was an apprentice in a portrait studio and he got kicked out because of jealousy, I don’t know what kind of jealousy. But he ended up in this monastery with […]. And he went from being an illiterate orphan to being the foremost botanist on the island. SN: And I think this is quite a parallel to how Linnaeus was brought up… CF: He was definitely not a starving orphan. Linnaeus was from the merchant class, so they weren’t nobility, they were upper middle class.

CF: Right, his life work! SN: It’s another really relevant story. CF: Here is one of the drawings that Dufourney made. Dufourney and he [Da Ucria] had a similar relationship […] because Dufourney had to escape when the Bourbon king and queen came to Palermo, because he was a Jacobite. So he was tied to the front revolutionaries and Maria Carolina was the sister of Marie Antoinette and all of Dufourneys drawings he would send them to Da Ucria. Da Ucria would say ‘yes, that’s right’ or ‘no, that plant has three pistons not two… SN: And it was quite common in that time for monks to be enlightened in a way, that they were for example also medics? CF: Many! Most medics were monks. Da Ucria is fascinating because depending on the order in the monastery, the monks would come from different classes. So the monastery […] A Diary of Interviews

CF: These photos show how the entrance was changed. Here we can see that there is a gate but there aren’t those two […] that you see in front of the Gymnasium right now. The entry originally was not where we came in, but it was between the […] SN: Because is this the same viewpoint? CF: Yeah, this is the same viewpoint. So originally you would enter here, your carriage would go down this road and there was a portal between Villa Giulia, the pleasure garden and the botanical garden. You would go in the one or the other, to come up to the Gymnasium, not from the street side but from this side on the exit. SN: That is also what led me to parallel the Linnaean section to an actual city block, because of its roads and the axes. CF: Yeah, most urban plans came out of gardens, not the other way around […] Because of the great designs that were built around Rome, so 59

the Boboli and before that even Hadrian’s villa that inspired architects on how to design the city.

“Yeah, most urban plans came out of gardens, not the other way around […] Because of the great designs that were built around Rome, so the Boboli and before that even Hadrian’s villa that inspired architects on how to design the city.” CF: …Idea of ordering plants. SN: Exactly! So when I started to look into the whole ordering of the Orto Botanico, I saw this other rigid structure of Engler and then I needed to make this decision between Linnaeus and Engler… CF: I mean, even if you look at the map itself and you take a walk through it, you can…it goes from the most prehistoric plants to the most modern plants. So it’s pretty intuitive even if you’re looking at it just yourself and you can make your own map of it. And here [in the Linnaean section] you can see a good example of how once the plants were left to do their own

thing certain plants took over from other plants. When Da Ucria planted it, it was on a perfect grid. Of course over time that grid has changed. The plants have grown, died, plants underneath don’t get light because they don’t grow under big trees. These for example, you can see them, are spontaneous. They weren’t planted in. But once they start growing, the gardener just leaves them there because they look nice. So right now the Linnaean section is inside these walls and the plants outside these walls are more modern. SN: And the first plants that came to the Linnaean section, were they arbitrary? Just, get everything you can get into this garden? CF: Well, there was another botanical garden being moved from the city’s bastions. So all of those plants were planted and then what was added. Just as said before, the big excursions in the 1800s brought a lot of new plants in from Australia, America, South Africa[…] So in the 1700s most of the exotic plants came from the Americas[…] The first wave of the Spanish empire and then the imperialism is more related to this history of the British colonies.

Notes: Urban plans and gardens have a parallel. Same wish for order, same strive for an ideal. Is it attainable? The plan of the garden versus the natural plan of plant growth

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TEATRO GARIBALDI Uriel Orlow

artist via Teatro Garibaldi, 46-56, Palermo, 30 nov. 2017

(Earlier during the artist meet-up) SN: [On language and renaming as violence] UO: That is an interesting question. I think language is the way we relate to the world and to each other, how we organize the world and our relationship to it. So I think it’s really important to think about what things are called, who names them, who has the power to name them, and which names are used, which names are not used. And in this case the colonial context, the name giving is an act of epistemic violence, a kind of violence in the knowledge systems, through knowledge systems. Where you could control the knowledge and the world you have access to, and introduce a language that is not spoken anywhere in the world, the Latin. That

“And in this case the colonial context, the name giving is an act of epistemic violence, a kind of violence in the knowledge systems, through knowledge systems. Where you could control the knowledge and the world you have access to, and introduce a language that is not spoken anywhere in the world, the Latin.” A Diary of Interviews

only people from higher classes have access to, that only people who have access to education, who come from certain countries. That is precisely why it is interesting to me, because this study of violence is something that continues, it is still there, because the botanical garden in Cape Town has decided to keep those names […]. I have spoken to a lot of botanists at the botanical garden, they all use the Latin names […] particular system of knowledge, so that is what everyone uses. SN: Thank you so much for your time, it’s been a long day…So, to introduce myself real quick: I am a student from the TU Delft, I’m conducting this research in the context of my Architecture studio, because I am an Architecture student. So I am actually not really an artist, or…and it’s a research studio, so not necessarily a design studio. UO: No. Okay. SN: So I was…as you were explaining your method of researching earlier, I was really struck by the specifics of the sites. And kind of coincidentally, I came to the site of the Orto Botanico. There I was struck by the order in the Linnaean section… UO: Of the Orto Botanico? SN: Yeah, of the Orto Botanico, that formal ordering. And then I began researching and thinking…so the Linnaean section, as you know, has this root in the Enlightenment, which is the ordering of the world, the naming and the conquering of the world, predecessor of the colonial. UO: Yeah.

SN: And, I was thinking that to address certain topics which are not only Palermitan, but also in a broader perspective, the world…most of all the topic of displacement, which is also found in that Linnaean section. The finding of root, being taken away from your own root…naming and de-naming, to depersonalize the whole situation and not to make it an aggressive political attack on what is happening here, but from a more… yeah, that’s why I take the approach of the postAnthropocene. The view from a plant. More literally, I want to film from this perspective, the view of a plant, the perspective on our world. UO: Okay. SN: So that’s like the context. UO: Okay. SN: So…I already asked the quesiion of whether the bringing into order can be seen as an act of violence. And then there is also this other bringing into order…the monk Da Ucria, who designed the Linnaean section, who is also represented in the exhibition in the Gymnasium…I was told by another researcher, Cassandra Funsten, that while he designed this garden, or section, he actually ignored the natural understanding of plant co-existence. He made them into…a sort of a botanical Wunderkammer, out of real islands of plants. Which are not the first and not the last of the many violences committed against the plants, similar to the registration of migrants, making them stand in a row, taking pictures, taking them to an island without any context. Then there is this counter-violence of those plants, some of them growing into big specimen, taking over more than their own piece of ground. She said that the people of the Orto Botanico are now

in the process of…they actually do not know how to deal with this. Those plants are old, they have a history, but they have taken over more than what was allowed to them, in that act of violence of placing them into a new position. So the mediation is lost between plant and human. I would want to know your perspective on how to restore the communication between plant and man. UO: Oh my god, that is a big question for the end of the day! I am supposed to give you all the answers. I don’t know. SN: …a hunch? An intuitive approach, knowing this backstory? UO: How to…well, I mean…how about thinking about what the plants like? And how the plants feel? Because the Orto Botanico, I mean most botanical gardens are museums and archives, where the plants serve a particular purpose in a larger system. It is not considered in its own right, so what about thinking how the plant wants to live? Not necessarily who it’s related to, or what the system thinks it belongs to, but what it likes? If they would like more light? If they would like more water? Or shade?

“How about thinking about what the plants like? And how the plants feel? SN: That is actually something that… in the Linnaean section, you would have some plants perhaps die because they are constantly in the shadow of a plant that overtook.

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UO: Exactly. I think the problem is that this thing is something that works on paper. But once you take it to an actual botanical garden structure, it produces a lot of violence, which is out of forcing plants to live next to other plants that they are not suited to. So I think to readdress this is to think about the plants’ needs. SN: That is a beautiful way, also simple. UO: I mean…I think a lot of these things are not necessarily very complicated. The trick is to think about what was lost on the way, and how can we communicate with that. SN: Yeah. There is also this other thing that I have discovered…I have done a pre-research, but it was mostly really architectural, really… about trying to understand the order. And here I have encountered some sensitivities, which are really particular and interesting, for example the correlation between experimental gardens in the Orto Botanico and Villa Tasca, and other villas of the nobility. They collected the species that came here from abroad, to acclimatize and then be used in the city of Palermo. So a lot of those…a lot of the really old plants here in Palermo, really specific and meaningful plants, are actually related, clones from those gardens. UO: That’s right. SN: And that connection…the sort of…the bigger family…not really a family because there is no sexual reproduction, but the cloning is something that has fascinated me. UO: It is very interesting. But I am not sure I am the right person, because I am not a specialist on Palermo yet, nor the Orto Botanico. I am just yet starting my research. So I think I am around the

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same stage as you, I am discovering these things, different meanings… SN: No, I think…for me it’s interesting to have your input because you have been doing this type of research for years… UO: Yes, but elsewhere and what I want to be careful about is that…I am not a botanist. So I am not a specialist and I usually am way... as I said in the talk, I am interested in the specificities. I can talk more about the context in South Africa than I can here, because I am still discovering. I am still doing the research. I am very careful not to work like a scientist, that produces transferrable knowledge, where you have a precise and universal system. So what I have learned in South Africa, I don’t know if it is applicable here, some of these things. So I’m very careful to…to avoid making generalizations, or reducing. Which is how a scientist works, you find clues and then you deduce ‘it works like this or this’. Basically, as an artist I want to work for a different thing. So…if you speak a botanist, they can speak to any botanical garden, because they operate according to the same scientific principles. But for me it are the differences that are interesting. And actually, there is for example a huge difference between the botanical garden in Cape Town and the botanical garden here, in that the botanical garden of Cape Town was one of the first only indigenous botanical gardens. Which is very very rare. Usually botanical gardens are collections of exotic species, but because there was such a huge biodiversity of plants, they decided very early on to make a botanical garden that focused on indigenous plants. So, it has no European plants. And that is interesting again for historical and cultural reasons. So for

me it’s really once you look into all these details that it becomes interesting. Once we look at the Linnaean section and what was happening, who was doing it, and when they were doing it, that it becomes interesting.

Think about the specifics

SN: Yeah, it is really about that whole context and then trying to understand the…and also the…metaphor of […] in Palermo, that you would see in the Linnaean section…yeah there are many parallels that I have found on my way, just in investigating that little piece of land. UO: That is super interesting. I would like to find out more. You should keep me posted. SN: I will!

“So I’m very careful to…to avoid making generalizations, or reducing. Which is how a scientist works, you find clues and then you deduce ‘it works like this or this’. Basically, as an artist I want to work for a different thing.” Notes: How does the plant citizen want to live?

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THE ROOTS OF PLANT INTELLIGENCE Stefano Mancuso

researcher TED talk, jul. 2010, watched 01 dec. 2017

“Sometimes I go browsing [through] a very old magazine. I found this observation test about the story of the ark. And the artist that drew this observation test did some errors, had some mistakes -- there are more or less 12 mistakes. Some of them are very easy. There is a funnel, an aerial part, a lamp and clockwork key on the ark. Some of them are about the animals, the number. But there is a much more fundamental mistake in the overall story of the ark that’s not reported here. And this problem is: where are the plants? So now we have God that is going to submerge Earth permanently or at least for a very long period, and no one is taking care of plants. Noah needed to take two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal, of every kind of creature that moves, but no mention about plants. Why? In another part of the same story, all the living creatures are just the living creatures that came out from the ark, so birds, livestock and wild animals. Plants are not living creatures -- this is the point. That is a point that is not coming out from the Bible, but it’s something that really accompanied humanity. Let’s have a look at this nice code that is coming from a Renaissance book. Here we have the description of the order of nature. It’s a nice description because it’s starting from left -- you have the stones -- immediately after the stones, the plants that are just able to live. We have the animals that are able to live and to sense, and on the top of the pyramid, there is the man. This is not the common man. The “Homo studiosus” -- the studying man. This is quite comforting for people like me -- I’m a professor -- this to be over there on the top of creation.

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But it’s something completely wrong. You know very well about professors. But it’s also wrong about plants, because plants are not just able to live; they are able to sense. They are much more sophisticated in sensing than animals.

“But it’s also wrong about plants, because plants are not just able to live; they are able to sense.” Just to give you an example, every single root apex is able to detect and to monitor concurrently and continuously at least 15 different chemical and physical parameters. And they also are able to show and to exhibit such a wonderful and complex behavior that can be described just with the term of intelligence. Well, but this is something -- this underestimation of plants is something that is always with us. Let’s have a look at this short movie now. We have David Attenborough. Now David Attenborough is really a plant lover; he did some of the most beautiful movies about plant behavior. Now, when he speaks about plants, everything is correct. When he speaks about animals, [he] tends to remove the fact that plants exist. The blue whale, the biggest creature that exists on the planet -- that is wrong, completely wrong. The blue whale, it’s a dwarf if compared with the real biggest creature that exists on the planet -- that is, this wonderful, magnificent 77

Sequoiadendron giganteum. (Applause)

“When he speaks about animals, [he] tends to remove the fact that plants exist. The blue whale, the biggest creature that exists on the planet -- that is wrong, completely wrong. The blue whale, it’s a dwarf if compared with the real biggest creature that exists on the planet -- that is, this wonderful, magnificent Sequoiadendron giganteum.” And this is a living organism that has a mass of at least 2,000 tons. Now, the story that plants are some low-level organisms has been formalized many times ago by Aristotle, that in “De Anima” -- that is a very influential book for the Western civilization -- wrote that the plants are on the edge between living and not living. They have just a kind of very low-level soul. It’s called the vegetative soul, because they lack movement, and so they don’t need to sense. Let’s see.

Okay, some of the movements of the plants are very well-known. This is a very fast movement. This is a Dionaea, a Venus fly trap hunting snails -- sorry for the snail. This has been something that has been refused for centuries, despite the evidence. No one can say that the plants were able to eat an animal, because it was against the order of nature. But plants are also able to show a lot of movement. Some of them are very well known, like the flowering. It’s just a question to use some techniques like the time lapse. Some of them are much more sophisticated. Look at this young bean that is moving to catch the light every time. And it’s really so graceful; it’s like a dancing angel. They are also able to play -- they are really playing. These are young sunflowers, and what they are doing cannot be described with any other terms than playing. They are training themselves, as many young animals do, to the adult life where they will be called to track the sun all the day. They are able to respond to gravity, of course, so the shoots are growing against the vector of gravity and the roots toward the vector of gravity. But they are also able to sleep. This is one, Mimosa pudica. So during the night, they curl the leaves and reduce the movement, and during the day, you have the opening of the leaves -- there is much more movement. This is interesting because this sleeping machinery, it’s perfectly conserved. It’s the same in plants, in insects and in animals. And so if you need to study this sleeping problem, it’s easy to study on plants, for example, than in animals and it’s much more easy even ethically. It’s a kind of vegetarian experimentation. Plants are even able to communicate -- they

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are extraordinary communicators. They communicate with other plants.

“Plants are even able to communicate -they are extraordinary communicators.” They are able to distinguish kin and nonkin. They communicate with plants of other species and they communicate with animals by producing chemical volatiles, for example, during the pollination. Now with the pollination, it’s a very serious issue for plants, because they move the pollen from one flower to the other, yet they cannot move from one flower to the other. So they need a vector -- and this vector, it’s normally an animal. Many insects have been used by plants as vectors for the transport of the pollination, but not just insects; even birds, reptiles, and mammals like bats rats are normally used for the transportation of the pollen. This is a serious business. We have the plants that are giving to the animals a kind of sweet substance -- very energizing -- having in change this transportation of the pollen. But some plants are manipulating animals, like in the case of orchids that promise sex and nectar and give in change nothing for the transportation of the pollen. Now, there is a big problem behind all this behavior that we have seen. How is it possible to do this without a brain? We need to wait until 1880, when this big man, Charles Darwin, publishes a wonderful, astonishing book that starts a revolution. The title is “The Power of

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Movement in Plants.” No one was allowed to speak about movement in plants before Charles Darwin. In his book, assisted by his son, Francis -- who was the first professor of plant physiology in the world, in Cambridge -- they took into consideration every single movement for 500 pages. And in the last paragraph of the book, it’s a kind of stylistic mark, because normally Charles Darwin stored, in the last paragraph of a book, the most important message. He wrote that, “It’s hardly an exaggeration to say that the tip of the radical acts like the brain of one of the lower animals.” This is not a metaphor. He wrote some very interesting letters to one of his friends who was J.D. Hooker, or at that time, president of the Royal Society, so the maximum scientific authority in Britain speaking about the brain in the plants. Now, this is a root apex growing against a slope. So you can recognize this kind of movement, the same movement that worms, snakes and every animal that are moving on the ground without legs is able to display. And it’s not an easy movement because, to have this kind of movement, you need to move different regions of the root and to synchronize these different regions without having a brain. So we studied the root apex and we found that there is a specific region that is here, depicted in blue -- that is called the “transition zone.” And this region, it’s a very small region -- it’s less than one millimeter. And in this small region you have the highest consumption of oxygen in the plants and more important, you have these kinds of signals here. The signals that you are seeing here are action potential, are the same signals that the neurons of my brain, of our brain, use to

exchange information. Now we know that a root apex has just a few hundred cells that show this kind of feature, but we know how big the root apparatus of a small plant, like a plant of rye. We have almost 14 million roots. We have 11 and a half million root apex and a total length of 600 or more kilometers and a very high surface area. Now let’s imagine that each single root apex is working in network with all the others. Here were have on the left, the Internet and on the right, the root apparatus. They work in the same way. They are a network of small computing machines, working in networks. And why are they so similar? Because they evolved for the same reason: to survive predation. They work in the same way. So you can remove 90 percent of the root apparatus and the plants [continue] to work. You can remove 90 percent of the Internet and it is [continuing] to work. So, a suggestion for the people working with networks: plants are able to give you good suggestions about how to evolve networks. And another possibility is a technological possibility. Let’s imagine that we can build robots and robots that are inspired by plants. Until now, the man was inspired just by man or the animals in producing a robot. We have the animaloid -- and the normal robots inspired by animals, insectoid, so on. We have the androids that are inspired by man. But why have we not any plantoid? Well, if you want to fly, it’s good that you look at birds -- to be inspired by birds. But if you want to explore soils, or if you want to colonize new territory, to best thing that you can do is to be inspired by plants that are masters in doing this. We have another possibility we

are working [on] in our lab, [which] is to build hybrids. It’s much more easy to build hybrids.

“But if you want to explore soils, or if you want to colonize new territory, to best thing that you can do is to be inspired by plants that are masters in doing this.” Hybrid means it’s something that’s half living and half machine. It’s much more easy to work with plants than with animals. They have computing power, they have electrical signals. The connection with the machine is much more easy, much more even ethically possible. And these are three possibilities that we are working on to build hybrids, driven by algae or by the leaves at the end, by the most, most powerful parts of the plants, by the roots. Well, thank you for your attention. And before I finish, I would like to reassure that no snails were harmed in making this presentation. Thank you.

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“Let’s have a look at this nice code that is coming from a Renaissance book. Here we have the description of the order of nature.”

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;These are young sunflowers, and what they are doing cannot be described with any other terms than playing. They are training themselves, as many young animals do, to the adult life where they will be called to track the sun all the day.â&#x20AC;? A Diary of Interviews

A Diary of Interviews

SKYPE TALK Leone Contini

artist via Dante Alighieri, 57, Palermo, 01 dec. 2017

SN: …I am also curious for the outcome. LC: If you have the chance to read something on the history of the botanical garden, it’s interesting. But it’s only in Italian, I guess. SN: Yeah, it’s…something really funny happened, on Wednesday we visited Villa Tasca. And we were shown around by a researcher, her name is Cassandra Funsten. A really nice person, her husband is the head curator of the Orto Botanico… LC: Ah, Manlio? SN: Yeah! I met him too on that Wednesday. So we walked to the Orto Botanico and on the way to there she explained to me the colonial history of the Orto Botanico and the connection with the Enlightenment. The various experimental gardens, the gardens for assimilation for the plants, the nurseries, and how... We went to the Orto Botanico, she showed me a bit around the Linnaean section and told me about the design of Da Ucria and he was fascinated by the order of Linnaeus. What struck me was that he ordered the plants and he planted them along the ordering of Linnaeus, based on the characteristics of sexual reproduction of the plants. But ordering them like that has nothing to do with the actual needs of the plants…

have taken over the grounds of other plants and some have died, because they could not co-exist. LC: Okay, and when was this planted? SN: So the Linnaean section was the first section planted in the Orto Botanico, so this is late 18th century. LC: But there was something very interesting in your email [d.d.], the arbitrary naming systems… SN: So the naming system of Linnaeus, was actually…he didn’t come up with it entirely by himself, he just reinforced in an orderly fashion, so the formalizing. He…there was still the binominal Latin naming, but what he did was to order all the plants that he came along the way along that system and add a certain element of triviality to it. Also with the animals he encountered and the minerals[…] Just to make those names more recognizable and easier to remember, add a certain triviality and spontaneity to the whole act of violence actually. Of re-naming certain plants and animals to...something…because the Latin name is something that only a certain class of society can understand, it is not a common name.

LC: Ah, okay okay[…]

LC: Right, so you must combine the Latin group[…]It’s a bit like when you find a new star or a new planet, that freedom to decide its name. And I think this is somehow rescuing the violence of naming them in a way [...] Using words in a simple way […] this aspect of arbitrary naming.

SN: Yeah, the statue of Da Ucria is in front of the Gymnasium, and a part of the Gymnasium is dedicated to this small history. You have a book written by Da Ucria…and some papers…but he planted that section. What she [Cassandra] then told me was that those plants are now…some

SN: I spoke about this also…because I went to this artist meet-up with Uriel Orlow and…at Manifesta and it was this Thursday and I spoke to him as well about the act of re-naming as an act of violence. How to use that act to set things

LC: So are we talking about Linnaeus, or someone else…? SN: The monk, Da Ucria, he designed the Linnaean section in the Orto Botanico.

A Diary of Interviews

straight […] to defuse the situation, to give back a certain dignity? LC: It’s very interesting. I don’t know how I can help with this. I can only give some input… SN: If I can say one more thing, I think that a certain part of my investigation IS about this naming system and is about triviality, but a bigger part of it is actually about the viewpoint of plants. So I became really fascinated about this violence committed against plants and the displacement, it’s also why I wanted to film in various viewpoints, the viewpoints of the plants. To show that they are actually more than sentient, they are not just objects, they have a consciousness, they have needs, and certain will. And to conduct these interviews with really trivial questions, like ‘how do you like your neighbors? ‘And ‘what do you do for work?’ because this work aspect, this usefulness, that’s sort of the notion of plant slavery, to bring them here, make them useful. LC: Right, especially in the colonial project in the 19th century it was all about how to export either plants from the colonies to Italy, to acclimatize, to make them suitable, adapt them to the Mediterranean climate […] So those aspects are very connected in a way. It’s interesting that many of the plants that today are found in Europe, the avocado for example, have you heard about that? This is the only place in Europe where we can grow avocado and mangos; this is because of those very early experiments. But this of course is an island and […] SN: I have heard from Cassandra that there are actually plants growing there now which have come there through media of travels, wind…and

that the botanists saw it and they actually liked how it looked and they didn’t stop it. But it’s now taking over certain designed areas. LC: Interesting. You don’t know the names of these plants? SN: No, because I had a really brief look, but I will try to…I want to map the plants of the Linnaean section to include that into my investigation, to see what is actually there. LC: Of course your interest is in plants in general, not necessarily domesticized plants. Because in a way my point of view is already anthropocentric, my main interest is about edible vegetables. Fruit plants for example are completely domesticized, many of these cannot grow from [...] Like cherries for example, if you see cherries they don’t have […] and so I’m fascinated by your research, I would like to know more about…For example this aspect that I like, it’s very impressive, the roots which are tapping into the aquifers, looking for water, the re-colonizing. SN: Yeah, it’s actually that…it’s fascinating that the plants are brought here to be useful, to behave in a certain sense. Then they just go out of control, they find root here, and become a certain problem. Then you also have the notion of botanical nationalism, which follows this. LC: For example? SN: Well, an example for this is the various attempts to save Mediterranean species or when we walked through the Conca d’Oro, we went there and a researcher [name] told us that certain species from China has sort of invaded, it has pushed away the indigenous sorts. That we

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should save the indigenous sorts. LC: When you look at edible species, it’s a very present rhetoric. Especially in Sicily you have this hidden fashion in a way, a marketing strategy, the ancient seeds, to note the ancient grain. It’s a worldwide thing, in Sicily they take it a bit far. On one side, they are rescuing the culture, on the other hand, it is a potential… botanic nationalism, which is problematic. SN: Yeah. LC: But did you hear about the migrant farmers? People from especially Bangladesh. Around Palermo are many people from Bangladesh, did you hear about them? SN: Yeah, I have heard about them. We were supposed to have a talk with the representative of the Tamil community actually but unfortunately, it didn’t work out. However, you have the migrant farmers who produce their own crops, indigenous, and sell them at the markets. It’s quite fascinating. LC: Because with this, it’s the other way around of the botanic garden. The garden was a centralized event, something exotic with all the colonial implication. What is happening now is the other way round. The foreigners came here and took care of the land. In a way, it’s this act of care, which is important in that culture. And in a way it enabled them to stay, if we talk about this metaphor of the root, displaced roots. Nevertheless, it became a sort of a naturalization process. But how do you feel about this, from the anthropocentric perspective, how can you combine this with the post-anthropocentric? These displaced, rural farming activities?

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“The garden was a centralized event, something exotic with all the colonial implication. What is happening now is the other way round. The foreigners came here and took care of the land. In a way, it’s this act of care, which is important in that culture.” SN: I am still figuring out my position in this, but I think that making a metaphor out of it, and looking for the more specific or even the absurd. For me that…I think that helps for me. Because then from that specific you can see the connections, you can let people see those connections without actually calling people out as…colonists. LC: I think so. You know what is very interesting? I wrote you about it [d.d.] that Palermo was heavily bombed during the war, that the ruins of the houses were dumped in the part of the sea shore just in front of the botanical garden. If you go towards the shore, you will see these big streets, and after that you have a sort of a garden, a gigantic square, and then you have the sea. SN: Yeah, the Foro Italico. LC: Yes, this is very interesting because it only

came into existence after…it was artificially created and it also interrupted in a way the relation between the sea and the city. Because if you see how the seashore of Palermo looked before the war, with the houses on the seaside… it’s amazing, like Havana in Cuba. The street ended at the sea, it was very direct, and now you have these hundred meters of…nothing, gigantic stones, and then you have the sea. This place, which is artificial, but then it’s covered by a little soil, grass, a little layer of nature. For me it’s one of the worst[…] of toxicity, which is even combined with a war. This couldn’t be a nice place for you to investigate as well? SN: I think I would be deviating too far away from my…because I’m…looking more into the Enlightenment and Colonialism, the bringing into order, and then try to explain the domination of man over plants. But of course this whole information…it’s all context to what I am doing, to legitimize what I am doing, and that is also why I want to talk to you and other artists. Your work is in a sense the context to what I am doing now. LC: But tell me, your work…is to produce…what kind…an artwork, something interdisciplinary? SN: It’s…because I am a student of Ippolito and Paul, studying in a master track, so this work that I am doing is actually a work which has to be done in about ten weeks, it’s a studio project for my masters in Architecture. But it’s a research studio, which means we have quite some freedom to actually think of a certain toolset to represent a narrative for the city. It’s rather a coincidence that I have become fascinated with the Orto Botanico and what is

happening there. Then I heard of your work, the work of other artists, and how they actually tie into my idea. What I eventually would like to produce is a video-installation with a small explanation in the form of a booklet. That videoinstallation would show the Orto Botanico from the perspective of the plants. LC: I think the point of connection between our approaches is in fact Linnaeus, because for me Linnaeus was…sorry if I am not so sensitive…I never thought of violence against plants…I was more thinking about cultural violence, in relation with other cultures. So for example, I remember that years ago a Chinese botanist fascinated me. Actually before Linnaeus, he classified plants… SN: What was his name? LC: I will look it up and let you know. SN: That would be amazing. LC: […], I have made a drawing performance pairing the two guys. It was always about Linnaeus and this Chinese botanist. It were very simple drawings, you should think about performance drawings, like a studio drawing. So I was […] drawing the map of […] all the continents, trying to map the migration of several vegetables. Like […] in China it’s called bakchoi. And how the humans domesticized vegetables in different space-time frames and at some point I closed with the anecdote of two

“I would like to… tell you about [...] universalism, how that was appropriated by the West.” A Diary of Interviews

men facing each other […] I would like to…tell you about the idea of universalism, how that was appropriated by the West.

as well, that arbitrariness, the emotion or observation in that rigid Latin name.

SN: This is super interesting.

LC: Yeah, but for the cucurbit it’s very…it’s more specific. But for the green […] it’s a bit less precise. Tsai means everything green. For the cucurbit, it’s always very scientifically correct. For the green stuff, they gather several families. Let’s say…you know the Chrysant(?)?

LC: I was fascinated by how the universalism was monopolized by the West, and so nowadays if you look at the name of this plant, it’s the Swedish guy that had decided the taxonomy. And so it was about the struggle between the two guys, to name the nature. SN: That is super interesting actually. So you have the Chinese naming system, would you also know of other naming systems, maybe of India or somewhere in Africa? LC: No, but it would be very interesting to compare the classifications and the […] distance. In the common Chinese language […] to think about real classificatory systems, but for example in Italian the zucchini and the watermelon are not perceived as part of even the same family, not even in common English I think. Because zucchini is a vegetable and a watermelon is a fruit. Instead, in Chinese common language, it’s Wang Wa and Qi Wa. So in the common name, even illiterate people will understand that the two plants are part of the cucurbit family.

SN: Yeah? LC: It’s not related to bakchoi, or Chinese cabbage, but nevertheless they are both Tsai: Hou Tsai and Bai Tsai, because of the green (?) leaves which are edible. The families are completely different. In both cases they have two names, so maybe you can compare the two systems? But this…Hou Tsai, you know it’s a flower (?), in Italy it’s the flower of the dead… where do you come from? SN: Where I come from? Long story, both of my parents are from different countries… LC: You could gather some interesting knowledge on this. SN: Yeah, perhaps those countries also have a naming system which can contribute.

SN: So they actually have a deeper understanding of relationships between this family than we in the West?

LC: Maybe it’s interesting to investigate that…

LC: Yes, so even in the common language there is an imperatively rooted […] system, and it’s composed of two parts, like in Linnaeus. Usually, one part in the cucurbits is always Wa and the first name is more like…an invention. Like a fantasy, arbitrary, completely arbitrary.

LC: And so the state didn’t survive the sort… the competition between the nation states. So the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, it was eaten by the Italian nation state and in a way colonized. So it’s also interesting that these colonial assumptions, the implicit colonial components of naming, classifying, adapting, and so on were

SN: That is kind of what Linnaeus introduced

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SN: Yeah.

actually conceived by a failure in this colonial competition[…] I don’t know if this is interesting for you, but it gives some context, right? SN: Yeah, it most definitely does, because I can remember that I have read and heard that the time of the existence of the Orto Botanico was actually a time in which Sicily has become more aware of their heritage so to say, that they have created institutions to conserve that knowledge. And the Orto Botanico was one of those institutions. LC: Yeah, for sure […] of the creation of a nation state, the Orto Botanico like all the museums, but that nation-state never became real in a way. Never became a real nation state, because it was eaten by Italy. So in a way it’s interesting as a failed attempt to create this sort of common heritage. I think this is very fascinating, because it makes…this is very interesting about Sicily in general. I think especially this illuminist project, the enlightened project which…failed, because its community of Sicilian [...]

“Never became a real nation state, because it was eaten by Italy. So in a way it’s interesting as a failed attempt to create this sort of common heritage.” SN: This is very interesting. It is just so fascinating that something that I never thought about doing a project on, a part in the Orto

Botanico of Palermo, has this richness in history and so many motives you can attach to the simple order of a section in a botanical garden. It is just mind-blowing! LC: Yeah, because on the one side you had very similar events, I think even the Netherlands. They created something similar in Indonesia. Or of course the Kew gardens in England. So on the one side it’s very comparable, these colonial, living museums, actually because this is the start of colonial museums, on the one side. On the other side, the King of the Two Sicilies, who had his council in Naples, never achieved these stages of colonial power. So actually, it was eaten by another colonial power we could say. Sicily has really always been between these…Now there is the idea that Sicily was colonized by the north. The north colonized the southern part of Italy[…]Since Italy had its colonial powers arrive pretty late, part of the ethnographic literature is related to the south of Italy itself. So it was a sort of self-colonized country in a way. The culture is very different between the north and the south. I’m half-half, so I’m half from the centernorth and half Sicilian, but I have always lived in Florence. In a way, I see this double…I’m in between two[…]But yeah Palermo is sort of a place where all these contradictions became so visible and reached a sort of peak. This complexity. How long are you in Palermo?! SN: Ha, I have been here from Sunday onward and I am staying until Tuesday, so slightly over a week. But I really feel that Palermo is an amazing city and I am just starting to…unravel the complexity. It needs time to sink in, but the tempo of everything has been super high here.

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As in meetings, information, and walking around the city. It’s been…intense. LC: I hope that the conversation has enriched it in a way. For sure I look forward to your[…] because I think this investigation you’re doing on re-naming, I think it’s very very[…]I’m sorry I am not there! It is difficult…I didn’t know if you could hear me or not! SN: Yeah, I could hear you very well actually, I was a bit afraid you couldn’t hear me! LC: But I don’t know if we have already talked about the Aqua dei Corsari? SN: …It’s that… LC: Have you been there? SN: No, no I haven’t been there, but there is this other person in my student group who is doing his project on the coastline. LC: Yeah, because it’s very interesting. It’s a bit like this bombed shore, it’s also artificially created with the leftovers of the destruction of Palermo, to create this new…And it’s also interesting how the vegetation, the plants are growing in this hyper-polluted environment. This is where I found these edible flowers, chrysantines(?). So I was thinking to do something between the Orto Botanico, the Foro Italico, and the Aqua dei Corsari.

the river is a god and at the same time micropolluted. So it’s a strange mixture of toxicity and food, because they were growing vegetables there. So it was even more…This is another spot I would like to investigate. I decided to, because of this complexity, I decided to move to Palermo. SN: Okay, when? LC: In April. SN: Okay. LC: Because I think it’s better to…I mean I’m half Sicilian, it’s an occasion to rediscover my roots also and I can be there instead of in Tuscany, it will make a difference. But I hope… do you have any other questions? I hope that you[…]this conversation. SN: I really think so. It’s always super nice to talk to people about perspectives, to hear other perspectives, to create new insights on this complex issue. I’m really thankful for this conversation.

SN: Yeah, because this toxicity is also a big issue in Palermo and it’s kind of mind-blowing how the people here pollute one of their main resources, which is the sea… LC: …in Palermo there was a […] and it was interesting that this toxicity was very present of course. In this case, it was interesting because the toxicity was related to the most sacred thing, which was the river. In the Hindu religions,

A Diary of Interviews

SKYPE TALK Alberto Baraya

artist korvezeestraat 371, Delft, 07 dec. 2017

SN: So firstly, I am super happy that you would like to speak to me, really grateful for your time. I already have discussed a few things in your email with my tutors. Especially the mentioning of the different scales was an inspiration for me to think a bit further…when I was in the Orto Botanico. AB: Yes. SN: While I was in the Orto Botanico, I was… looking for the right viewpoints, indeed from the perspective of a plant, to subvert the original perspective of mankind and its domination. So that was my perspective, how I went into the Orto Botanico, but I wanted to know…a bit more about how you do your own research… AB: Okay, so let me think first about what my approach is in the Orto Botanico…it is certainly…of course I want to tell you something about my previous work with the plants, because I began this work based on the Colombian history, as a post-colonial nation, after the Spanish colonial times. So almost at the end of that period, the royal expeditions happened to Colombia and this was a kind of tool to make profits from the colonies. So if they would discover better plants, they could get more profit. However, here in Colombia it happened that the people who were studying the plants were prepared for the investigations. These people were enlightened; it was a period in which the human civil rights were ‘produced’, the very beginning of the birth of republics. The people who were part of the expeditions also were the people who studied these new ways of thinking. Therefore, for some historians the botanical expeditions 96

were the beginning of the independence of the new nations in America. It is part of the reason of course, but also these people involved in the royal expeditions became the national heroes of independence. That is probably the main point of the project, or the historic point of that project. In addition, you have to consider that… once the nation is outside the […] there began internal fights, political fights, about who was going to be the boss. It’s all normal, you know. But it also happened that this idea of the colonial identity was not clear, questions like ‘who are we?’ or ‘what kind of identity can we fight for?’ came into being. This coincidence with the royal botanical expeditions gives a clue to identify the colonial time, the new patriotic identity of the country with these tropical plants and the tropical nature. That is primarily the clue to understand that.

“But it also happened that this idea of the colonial identity was not clear, questions like ‘who are we?’ or ‘what kind of identity can we fight for?’ came into being.” These royal expeditions from Spain, do they now have any kind of scientific consequence, because they were not published. It only began… it didn’t produce any books or any distribution of knowledge. So the royal botanical expedition from Spain remained 100-150 years long in boxes in the botanical garden in Spain, in Madrid. Thereafter, maybe around the 1840s there was

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an investigator, another priest and botanist, who had very close relations with the first director of the royal botanical expedition José Celestino Mutis. He began to publish the royal botanical expeditions in the 19th century. The publications are still running. It is still within a kind of agreement between the Spanish government and the Colombian to publish all these plates, 6000 of them, of tropical plants from the 18th century. Yes, in relation to your question, of course this identity began to be very popular in Colombia following this publication. People began to hang these plates in the public offices, in their houses. There is still a kind of pride, ‘yes, we are very tropical’, ‘we are…’ Well, we don’t know who we are, but in any case we are these plants. Something like that. Of course, the project of the herbarium of artificial plants is a kind of irony around that very point of the Colombian identity. SN: That is very interesting. It kind of has a parallel to the Sicilian identity and how that is also subject to constant questioning now. It is rather unclear, due to the several rulers Sicily had, but also the Orto Botanico and other institutions have become…they have blossomed in a time where Sicily was still under a foreign rule. It was also that kind of unclarity, but it also reflects in all the plants that have been sent from other botanical gardens to the Orto Botanico, which aren’t native Sicilian. It is reflected in the current diversity of the Palermitan citizens, the rich history of Palermo. AB: Yes, well exactly. Now let’s go to Sicily. Yes, something that we maybe share with this history is at least as far as I know…

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SN: Yes? AB: Yes, this relationship as far as I know, the botanical garden has a history which is very much tied to the university. It was the place to make a collection on the whole world. I suggested you to read on Alexander von Humboldt. Of course the history of the botanical gardens are prior to him, but it is a clue how they got profit from the colonies. I don’t know exactly the role of the botanical garden in Palermo, but as far as I know it is a living collection of a part of the world. It could also be a zoo, or a […] garden, something like that. As far as I know, this collection of non-Sicilian plants is a kind of…[…] collection, something that could be… If you have an exemplar, you have power over this exemplar but also power over the lands from where it came. It is like making a collection, similar to a museum or a zoo. A treasure chest. SN: Yeah, it is also funny that within this order you have the order by Nature fighting against it. Because what I have discovered while walking in that small perimeter of the Linnaean section…I have discovered that many plants have taken over more than their designated perimeter. You have within the Linnaean section the original thought of the Enlightenment, which is the dominance of man over plant. It results itself in a zoo-like manner, as you said, objects placed next to each other on their own small perimeter. Over time, what I have observed while I was in that Linnaean section that many plants have… taken over more than their own space, they have grown bigger than expected. Other plants have disappeared, because they for example grew

in the shadows of a bigger plant, they could not survive anymore. The garden also became infested with a random species, which is this change in dominance. It shows that nature cannot be controlled.

also a place of meeting. It is a meeting point, a meeting point of plants; plants from Madagascar and Colombia, or plants from China and South Africa.

AB: It is a good point of view, maybe that idea of the power of a new colony…It is something like, ‘okay, I came here, I grow here now, and I can get bigger here’. It is a nice metaphor of a colony. Also of course on the immigrant, this is the point.

AB: You know, it’s a kind of a very…it’s kind of an universal exposition! That is the point that I am working on: the greenhouse as a place of meeting. You asked me a project that I am working on now?

SN: Yeah. It was quite…I think during the process, I am not an artist; I am just an architecture student, it’s been very interesting to see how a botanical garden carries all these notions of colonialism, enlightenment, political notions of the post-Anthropocene. Everything can just be contained in such a small space. AB: Yes, I absolutely agree with you. And of course these…the botanical garden is a place of a collection of the botanist, to collect parts of the world and being able to walk around in it. You would go inside; you would walk and see the most faraway place in the world in your garden. It is a sort of exercise of power. What also happens is that in these special places of the greenhouses, the idea lives of acclimatization. Are you familiar with that? SN: Yes. AB: What happened were also a sort of universal shows, expositions universelles, where people who […] it was a kind of a live circus, of what is happening outside of our cities. A greenhouse is also a place, as you can see when you see the tropical plants in the […] of Europe, where…of course you also make a change of the climate, of the weather, and this change of the weather is

SN: Yeah.

SN: Yes! Because I am very interested…I also have spoken to some other artists who are also working on the topic on the botanical garden. We all have the entry point of enlightenment, colonialism, post-colonialism, but different was to express it. So I am very interested in how you are tackling the topic. AB: Yes, so this is the beginning of course, what happened in this particular place, that is this kind of meeting point. My work is not already projected, but I want to consider this place in Palermo as a meeting point in the Mediterranean, people going through the island of Sicily to the rest of Europe, taking a risk. As a meeting point of beliefs, that is something that is related to the plants in the whole of Sicily, these kinds of altars of plants. In every corner in Palermo you can find them, I have no doubt that it happens in the whole of Sicily. This belief and the idea of using plants to make adoration, that is the point that I am making. I want to try to come in contact with different communities and probably to invite them to this meeting point and to work on the idea of doing something with the plants in this greenhouse, that is related not only to the very plants but also to belief. Something like that. SN: It is very interesting because one of the

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things we visited in Palermo was a celebration of the Tamil community…actually they were mourning the dead during the resistance against the Sri Lankan government, but it was at the same time also an affirmation in some sense of their identity. Of course a lot of flowers were present, so I think it is a really good entry point. AB: Yes, I want to do something with that. I was just only five days in Palermo the last time. But this also allowed me to think to not just work with the artificial plants, probably it will be good to also work with live plants. There is not so much difference for people on which kind of plants you use, but of course…for what do you use a plant? If they are natural or artificial. This is the point I want to work on. There are some points I need to consider. But I am still working on this. SN: Yes, of course. It is all a work in progress, but I mean…I think it’s the same for us all. I think I have my format pinned down. So I went to the Orto Botanico and I made videos and photos from the perspective…of the plant or bacteria or small animal, by positioning my camera like that. And I have photographed a few plants and conducted interviews with them, bearing in mind the reversal of perspective from man to plant, to discuss the act of violence of bringing to plants as immigrants to Palermo. I was inspired by your work, using the artificial plants and being a sort of a pseudo-scientist and with that criticizing the whole science of botany. In a way by conducting these interviews, I am exactly questioning the triviality of science but also the…strangeness of the architect only

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thinking from the perspective of a human. AB: Yes, and did I say something about…when I was in Palermo someone asked me ‘what is exactly this idea of…making a difference with scientific knowledge?’ Scientific knowledge has become a code for us all…it has become a good progress, bringer of progress. I absolutely agree with the progress and the possibilities that have come from the science of plants. But it is not my point to compare it with other forms of knowledge, I want see from the practice of art. That is the point of my investigation…my point of view is to get another kind of knowledge in art practice. As you have proposed, it was very clever to use this idea of what is going to be the viewpoint of plants, how to understand the implications of the botanical garden for a plant. It should involve ideas on the place. It is…do plants have a kind of idea of the ridiculous? Or do they sense power, the different relations between servant and king? Things like that, which are involved with our story as human beings. Who has power, who hasn’t? That kind of questions we should consider, if they are related to plants or not. It is going to be very interesting. Of course we have this clear

“That is the point of my investigation… my point of view is to get another kind of knowledge in art practice.”

idea on the plants searching for sunlight and the most powerful plant is the one who can grow the fastest, the one who can get sunlight. If you can’t get sunlight you die. It could be the first consideration on power between plants. There is…I don’t know if it is good to note the idea of Carl Sagan saying that…wheat is very intelligent, they are the most widespread plant in the world, and what was its strategy? To be good for you, for human nurture. If you are good for human nurture, you can be all over the world. And that is a consideration to conquer the whole world. Of course, this idea of […] it could

“Of course we have this clear idea on the plants searching for sunlight and the most powerful plant is the one who can grow the fastest, the one who can get sunlight. If you can’t get sunlight you die. It could be the first consideration on power between plants.”

SN: Interesting. It also relates to this botanical nationalism. Some plants are considered to be invasive, a nuisance. But they were first brought here by those travelers. It is a weird power battle. In the botanical garden those manifestations of the…plants, the…plants that are considered to do harm, they are not being addressed. They said that they would leave them there because they looked good. AB: That is a…practical answer. SN: We also went to Villa Tasca, and there the answer was more based on aesthetics. One of the plants there grew so big, because it had tapped into the aquifer, next to it was a small plot with cacti and they didn’t grow that large because they needed sunlight. They said that the plant blocking the others couldn’t be removed because it would disturb the yin yang balance. AB: Very interesting. Belief system of the garden. SN: What kind of surprised me was that they became paralyzed by their own rules.

be very interesting. I don’t know in which grade it applies to all plants, if it’s a simple matter of survival. I don’t know. There is much more to that than this simple power-relationship.

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MR. ZHU

FATHER BHEKIZIZWE

MS. INKANGA

MR. DI SALVO

A Diary of Interviews

“BADA”

MR. J. ZHU

MRS. CHAKOTARA

MS. UMATHUNGA

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mr. zhu Where are you from? From China. Tell me a bit about your journey to Palermo? About 40 years ago, I came here from SW-China. I came by airplane and was looking for work. What kind of work do you do? I sell small products from China. I started as a laborer on a building site when I first moved here. How has the initial language boundary affected your stay in the Linnaean section? At first I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t communicate with any of the residents of this block, it was difficult to ask for their help or tell them how I felt. Have you ever felt discriminated by others on basis of your name, appearance, or even heritage? Yes, when I first came here. If you could change something about your environment, what would it be? I would like to have more sunshine and in general a warmer climate. Otherwise, I am doing okay.

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father bhekizizwe Where are you from? From South Africa. Tell me a bit about your journey to Palermo? Not too long ago, I came here to be the new minister of the local African church. You are part of the Church as an institution. Which institutions should incorporate a new understanding of (forced) displacement and its effects? It should begin with education, it is important for the new generation to understand trauma of the displaced, but also other governmental institutions should not forget the story of those who left their country. South Africa is a special situation in itself regarding the decolonization of institutions. What would help the transition to an equal and representative system? Being open. Openly addressing the embedded inequality and colonialism in knowledge systems. The act of naming compresses a perspective to a single word. Can this be seen as an act of violence? I think itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s really important to think about what things are called, who names them, who has the power to name them, and which names are used, which names are not used.

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“bada” Where are you from? From India. Tell me a bit about your journey to Palermo? Back home I didn’t have the best resources to raise my children, so we came here. Do you feel any power-inequality while obtaining these resources? Yes, there is always a struggle for water for example. Who can get their roots in deep, are the ones with the most chances. In which way have symbolic constructions, like legislation, oppressed your personal growth? There are always two sides to the same coin. What oppressed my growth, would be the unequal distributions of power and arbitrary rules. Yet, at the same time I have been offered an opportunity to redefine my future by staying here. Where lies the boundary of your identity? Ever since I have moved here, I have felt more and more intertwined with the Italian soil. My children have their roots here, and I try my best to adapt.

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ms. zhu Where are you from? From China. Tell me a bit about your journey to Palermo? I came to study here for an exchange project. How would you identify yourself? At the moment, as someone who loves life and loves to see new places. Although it changes often. In which way have symbolic constructions of an ideal society oppressed your personal growth? They have at times held me from chasing dreams, maybe because society is very focused on securing commodities, like sunlight or water. If you could change something about your environment, what would it be? At the moment I would indeed want more sunlight, some neighbors have better suited homes.

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mrs. inkanga Where are you from? From South Africa. Tell me a bit about your journey to Palermo? I came here from South Africa, first through Zimbabwe, then Senegal, Libya, and Italy. What has been your biggest struggle so far in Palermo? To find my way here. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t speak the language that well yet, but I am trying my best. How would you identify yourself, after your journey? Stronger than before. If you could change something about your environment, what would it be? More people who talk to me like a normal citizen.

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mr. di salvo Where are you from? From Palermo. Are you aware of your multicultural environment? Yes, I see a lot of migrants around. Being aware of it, have you socialized much with the citizens in your block? From time to time, I try to invite them. I am curious to hear their stories. Would you believe that they are an enrichment to your city? Yes, of course. They are free to come here. And if they have a hard time adapting, we should help them. If you could change something environment, what would it be? Nothing, I am pretty happy as it is.

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mrs. chakotara Where are you from? From Bangladesh. Tell me a bit about your journey to Palermo? With my husband I came here about 10 years ago. We came by buses and then a boat. What kind of work do you do? I help my husband with his store in the market in Palermo. How has the initial language boundary affected your stay in the Linnaean section? It is still difficult to talk to people who are not from Bangladesh here. It affects the way we are treated. Have you ever felt discriminated by others on basis of your name, appearance, or even heritage? Yes, unfortunately. If you could change something about your environment, what would it be? I would like to have more relatives and friends here, so I do not feel so alone.

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mr. umathunga Where are you from? From South Africa. Tell me a bit about your journey to Palermo? After a long time working in a hospital in Kenya, I came here. How would you identify yourself? As the son of Isigoba and Isigobo, and father of Leunyeli. In which way have symbolic constructions oppressed your personal growth? One-sided communal constructions lead to false judgements. This has happened a bit too often, also in my home country. The act of naming compresses a perspective to a single word, which can be misinterpreted. Can this be seen as an act of violence? Language is the way we relate to the world and to each other. How we classify our daily life. This relationship can be based on false perceptions, leading to epistemic violence.

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SKYPE TALK Leone Contini

artist via Dante Alighieri, 57, Palermo, 01 dec. 2017

LC: Ah, okay okay[…]

LC: So are we talking about Linnaeus, or someone else…? SN: The monk, Da Ucria, he designed the Linnaean section in the Orto Botanico.

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INSTALLATION

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Palermo and Delft 30 nov. 2017 - 24 jan. 2018

The idea of a video-installation came quite early into being. There was this need to picture the citizen from up close, to give them a voice. And I needed something a bit more dynamic than pictures or words alone.

Snippets of ted talk of Mancuso Evidence (the book) Black background and white text, neuzeit

When I arrived at the Orto Botanico, I began with photographing. Taking pictures and noting Linnaean names of plants, to get a bit more comfortable with the situation. The photographs are sometimes simple marks of orientation, documentation. Sometimes a testing of a camera viewpoint before I started filming.

Use the interviews

In my mind it was often the perfect point of view, but when playing back it disappointed a bit, and so I accumulated many test shots. Playing with scales was thus an element from very early on. I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want the viewer to have as much orientation as I did, it needed to feel larger than life, a whole other existence. After listening to Mancuso and reading a bit more of his work, I began to question what I saw a bit more. Did the plant citizen see the same colors? The same light? The same saturation? Then I played with that as well. The original sounds of the Orto Botanico are nice, they are a blurred out, distant account of the human world outside. Except for the most zoomed-in, bacterial view. What sounds do I use What music?

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“Bada”

“But it’s also wrong about plants, because plants are not just able to live; they are able to sense. They are much more sophisticated in sensing than animals.”

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Mr. Zhu

Birdsong in the distance. Cars. How has the initial language boundary affected your stay in the Linnaean section?

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Ms. Zhu

An ambulance. The sun. In which way have symbolic constructions of an ideal society oppressed your personal growth?

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Mr. Umathunga

Wind blowing. A traffic jam. The act of naming compresses a perspective to a single word, which can be misinterpreted. Can this be seen as an act of violence?

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