Agelanthus
(online)
with Eliana N’Zualo
09.2021 — 09.2022
Agelanthus é uma instalação digital online em construção, sobre o género de plantas hemi-parasitas nativas da ecozona afrotropical, e que mapeia os fluxos que partem desta planta para questões antropocêntricas. O trabalho foi desenvolvido em residência durante o mês de setembro, no programa Cross-Cultural Collaboration, organizado pela wendy.network, entre a artista portuguesa interdisciplinar Catarina Braga e a artista e escritora moçambicana Eliana N’Zualo.
Através de uma recolha de imagens, informações, catalogações e mapeamentos, propõe-se um exercício de associações e construção crítica sobre as estruturas humanas - políticas, sociais, imagéticas, e científicas, à volta do género de plantas agelanthus. Com origem numa pesquisa ligada à botânica da planta, a instalação vai crescendo como um arquivo plural e eclético que inclui citações de livros de ficção científica, de filosofia, e de pensamento ecologista, com prosa e poesia escrita pela artista Eliana, com fotografias, desenhos, herbários, mapas, imagens e hiperligações que nos apontam para fora, e para tudo aquilo que existe para além da planta. A partir da construção do website, as artistas procuram estimular os vários discursos que partem da produção de conhecimento e história da planta. Podemos pensar sobre a diáspora luso e afrodescendente mas também sobre a diáspora vegetal, sobre as relações coloniais entre Portugal e Moçambique, sobre a natureza da linguagem, a representação de conhecimento, e a mediação digital.
Agelanthus is an online digital installation under construction on the hemi-parasitic plants native to the Afrotropical realm, which maps the flows that depart from this plant to anthropocentric issues. The work was developed in a residency during the month of September, in the Cross-Cultural Collaboration program, organized by wendy.network, between the interdisciplinary Portuguese artist Catarina Braga and the Mozambican artist and writer Eliana N’Zualo.
Through a collection of images, information, catalogs and mappings, an exercise of associations and critical construction on human structures - political, social, imagery, and scientific – around the agelanthus plant genus is proposed. Originating from research linked to the plant's botany, the installation grows as a plural and eclectic archive that includes quotes from books on scientific literature, philosophy, and ecological thinking, with prose and poetry written by the artist Eliana, with photographs, drawings, herbaria, maps, images and links that point us outwards and to everything that exists beyond the plant. From the construction of the website, as artists they intend to stimulate the various discourses that come from the production of knowledge and history of the plant. We can think about the Portuguese and Afro-descendant diaspora, but also about the vegetal diaspora, about the colonial relations between Portugal and Mozambique, about the nature of language, the representation of knowledge and the digital mediation.
Through a collection of images, information, catalogs and mappings, an exercise of associations and critical construction on human structures - political, social, imagery, and scientific – around the agelanthus plant genus is proposed. Originating from research linked to the plant's botany, the installation grows as a plural and eclectic archive that includes quotes from books on scientific literature, philosophy, and ecological thinking, with prose and poetry written by the artist Eliana, with photographs, drawings, herbaria, maps, images and links that point us outwards and to everything that exists beyond the plant. From the construction of the website, as artists they intend to stimulate the various discourses that come from the production of knowledge and history of the plant. We can think about the Portuguese and Afro-descendant diaspora, but also about the vegetal diaspora, about the colonial relations between Portugal and Mozambique, about the nature of language, the representation of knowledge and the digital mediation.
