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Plant Echoes | Galleria Laveronica, Modica

In this exhibition, Orlow’s interest in how colonialist categorisation expunges indigenous systems of knowledge and belonging, took him to South Africa. Here, he found that not only did the British and Dutch re-name indigenous plants and try to eradicate as dangerous the use of herbal remedies, they also imported 9000 different exotic plants, many of which choked local flora. Orlow’s extraordinary new body of work uses plants as a potent lens through which to explore the socio-political, economic and spiritual ramifications of colonialisation.

Orlow focuses on the important role of medicinal herbs or ‘muthi’ in South African culture, with 60% of the population consulting a healer, who can choose from over 3000 plant species. With European pharmaceuticals exploiting the market for ’natural’ cures, a new front has opened in the contest of who owns what the land grows, has always grown. In ‘What Plants Were Called Before They Had A Name’ (2015-ongoing), male, female and collective voices recite the names of native plants in ten African languages, from isiZulu and SePedi to isiXhosa and Khoi, which had no legitimacy under a Latin taxonomy. ‘Language relates to politics,’ says Orlow, ‘and plant classification can be a form of epistemic violence’ In this sense, the surround sound audio piece acts as a restorative and moving oral dictionary.

‘Echoes’ (2017) is a series of photographs of dried brown sap stains on protective paper from botanical repositories in South African herbaria which date back to the colonial era of exploration. The tracings tell nothing of the traditional names or uses of the plants and highlight the imposition of a one-dimensional classification system that was revered as objective and unrivalled. It’s difficult to look at these frail residues, which contrast the tending delicacy of the botanists working amidst the cruel and murderous savagery of apartheid and colonialism before.

‘The Fairest Heritage’ (2016-17), poignantly intercepts a version of history. During his research, Orlow discovered a film made in 1963 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Kirstenbosch, the national botanical gardens of South Africa. Only three years after the Sharpeville Massacre and a year before Mandela’s incarceration for life on Robben Island, fifty international botanists toured South Africa, in a whites-only garden party. Orlow invited an African actor, Lindiwe Matshikiza, to interact with the projected images, delivering an elegantly silent addendum to the past, when the trade in exotic flowers evaded the boycott of South African goods till the late 1980s.

In this show, Orlow continues and develops his sensitive and pertinent re-working of histories, staging old documents in new settings, giving voice to those who have been muted to reconsider how agency can be re-enforced by art.

On 31. March at 14:45 there will be a film screening followed by a conversation between Uriel Orlow and Gabi Scardi at Cinema Aurora, Modica.


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Memória Colateral | Galeria Avenida da Índia, Lisboa

Uriel Orlow’s exhibition ‘Memória Colateral / Collateral Memory’ proposes an investigation into the concept of restitution, a theme he has explored for more than two decades. Beyond the simple return of objects or artefacts, restitution needs to be taken as a collective responsibility to reintegrate marginalised memories into history. This concept gains expression in interventions that recover forgotten knowledge and propose new ways of narrating historical events. Emphasis is placed on listening to the resonances of suppressed narratives in the present and fostering an ethic of memory and reparation.

With the support of República Portuguesa – Cultura I DGARTES – Direção-Geral das Artes, Galerias Municipais I EGEAC and Pro Helvetia I Swiss Art Council


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Naming Natures | Museum of Natural History, Neuchâtel (CH)

In 1838, Swiss naturalist Johann Jakob von Tschudi (1818—1889), commissioned by the Natural History Museum of Neuchâtel, sailed to Peru on a merchant ship filled with fabrics, champagne, and watches. During his journey, which lasted almost five years, he hunted and prepared over a thousand specimens, which he sent to Neuchâtel. This story is not unique: many European museums have collections acquired in a colonial context.

The Naming Natures project, supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, takes a critical look at natural history collections from colonial settings, combining scientific, historical, and museographic approaches. Is it still possible to exhibit these collections? And if so, how can they be presented differently without exoticizing or glorifying the figure of the “great men of science”? What responsibility do museums have towards the communities concerned?

With works by Chonon Bensho, Denise Bertsch, Fabiano Kueva, Ximena Garrido-Lecca, Raúl Silva, Santiago Yahuarcani and many others.


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EMAMI Art Experimental Film Festival | EMAMI Art, Kolkata

Screening of Imibizo Ka Mafavuke at EMAMI Art, Kolkata, in a session focused on films by Swiss artists curated by Damian Christinger and supported by the Swiss Embassy in India & Bhutan  at EMAMI Art Experimental FIlm Festival 2024. Screening along side works by Nicole Bachmann, Elodie Pong, Ursula Biemann and Monica Ursina Jäger.

Emami Art Experimental Film Festival (EAEFF) is a platform dedicated to curating and building discourses around alternative and experimental films, videos, and artists’ moving image practices. 


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Come Sing Along! On Raising Our Voices | Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz

As part of the Anton Bruckner Year 2024, the exhibition is dedicated to the aspect of communal singing from the perspective of contemporary art. The collection brings together around 20 national and international fi gures for whom singing is a fundamental point of reference within their artistic practice. The works on display explore singing in its various levels of meaning: be it as an expression of personal identity, as an opportunity for intercultural exchange, as a means of (political) protest, or as a community-building practice within contemporary societies.

With works by Sammy Baloji, Chto Delat, Michèle Pearson Clarke, Clément Cogitore, Ines Doujak, Noam Enbar, Nikolaus Gansterer, Mathilde ter Heijne, Dejan Kaludjerović and many others.


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Artist Conversation with Uriel Orlow, Francesca Brusa and Louisa Behr | Migros Museum, Zurich

On the occasion of the exhibition ‘Knowledge Is a Garden’, the museum is hosting an artist talk between the artist Uriel Orlow, Francesca Brusa (from the researcher ZHdK) and Louisa Behr (curatorial assistant).

Uriel Orlow curated the exhibition together with Nadia Schneider Willen, Co-Director Museum – Collection, and placed his own works in dialogue with works from the museum’s collection and external loans. His thematic starting point is his interest in the suppression of knowledge, the unlawful appropriation of knowledge and, ultimately, new forms of knowledge production and diversity. During the talk, Uriel Orlow will provide a deeper insight into both his own artistic practice and the selection process of the collection works and loans. The artist’s talk will focus on the impossibility of neutral knowledge production and reflect on the curatorial process, which is inevitably selective and thus makes a choice as to what knowledge is conveyed by the artworks.


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KNOWLEDGE IS A GARDEN | Migros Museum, Zurich

The exhibition Knowledge Is a Garden presents Uriel Orlow’s elaborate three-part video installation Theatrum Botanicum Trilogy (2016-2018) for the first time since it became part of the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst collection. In addition, the artist was invited to place his works based on his own artistic interests in dialogue with works from the collection. His focus is mainly on artistic explorations of «wilful non-knowledge» (agnotology). What knowledge is permitted in the course of global power relations, what is suppressed or hidden? What knowledge is unlawfully acquired? How is knowledge lost? What is a knowledge economy?

With works by Maria Eichhorn, Susan Hiller, General Idea, and others.


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