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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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Print is a Battlefield | Museo Villa Dei Cedri, Bellinzona, Switzerland

75 year anniversary exhibition of VFO (Verein für Originalgraphik, Zurich) curated by David Khalat with print projects by Luigi Archetti, Walead Beshty, Vanessa Billy, Julian Charrière, Valérie Favre, Sylvie Fleury, Pia Fries, Louisa Gagliardi, Raphael Hefti, Federico Herrero, Bethan Huws, Zilla Leutenegger, Uriel Orlow, Carmen Perrin, Karin Sander, Denis Savary, Elza Sīle and Selina Trepp.


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The Measure of the World | Radius CCA, Delft

THE MEASURE OF THE WORLD, revolves around the ghosts of Western Enlightenment thinking and the relationship between science, truth-finding and the consequential creation of worldviews. With the work of fifteen artists, the exhibition forms a conversation starter for the NATURECULTURES year program and presents a first counterpoint to the current crises that bear witness to the perverse reality of modernism. Participating artists: Karl Blossfeldt, Madison Bycroft, Filipa César & Louis Henderson, Laura Huertas Millán, Esther Kokmeijer, Sasha Litvintseva & Beny Wagner, Claudia Martínez Garay, Pedro Neves Marques, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Uriel Orlow, Andrew Pekler & Kiwi Stefanie Menrath, Erik Peters, Jol Thoms


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PhotoKTM 5 | Photo Circle Kathmandu

Uriel Orlow, What Plants Were Called Before They Had a Name (Guatemala)

The 5th edition of the festival will platform visual projects, and learning initiatives by a range of participants including artist, curator and teacher Munem Wasif from Bangladesh; Swiss artist and writer Uriel Orlow; Kathmandu-based digital archive Nepal Picture Library; KTK-Belt Project, which works towards catalyzing new models of biodiversity conservation and environmental learning in eastern Nepal; Indian filmmaker Sriram Murali; The Feather Library – an initiative co-founded by Isha Munshi to document, identify and study feathers of Indian birds; artist and writer Alana Hunt from Miriwoong country in the north-west of Australia; Mexican/British multidisciplinary visual artist Monica Alcazar Duarte; Indian filmmaker Amar Kanwar; and author, art curator, filmmaker, and theorist of photography and visual culture, Ariella Azoulay, among others.


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Unexpected Encounters | Kunstmuseum St Gallen

Up Up Up at Kunstmuseum St Gallen Photo by Stefan Altendorfer.

The exhibition Unexpected Encounters: New Perspectives on the Collection contrasts familiar works from the collection with artists from outside the collection. It thus offers a broader perspective and breaks with conventional readings of key works at the museum. Curated by Gianni Jetzer and Melanie Bühler with works by Marion Baruch, Martha Cunz, Per Kirkeby, Sherrie Levine, Johanna Nissen-Grosser, Uriel Orlow, Nam June Paik, Richard Serra, Sturtevant.


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Multispecies Clouds | Macalline Art Center, Beijing

Learning from Artemisia at Macalline Art Center Beijing

Group exhibition curated by Yang Beichen, including works by Cai Gut-Qiang, Carolina Caycedo & David de Rozas, Sergio Rojas Chaves, Chu Yun, Rometti Costales, Sheryl Cheung, Patricia Domínguez, Fei Yining, Jes Fan, Liu Chuang, Long Pan, Rice Brewing Sisters Club, Pamela Rosenkranz, Tong Yixin, Wu Chi-Yu, Trevor Yeung, Zhang Wenzhi, Zheng Mahler.

The first chapter of the series “Who Owns Nature?”, a research based curatorial project with three chapters at the Macalline Art Center. It seeks to re-examine our historical debt with “nature” and to explore a new non-linear cosmological model. This is an interdisciplinary and interdisciplinary project, in which we will work with different artists, scholars and cultural practitioners to create lively and serious sites on different issues.


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Rooted Stories | Casa da Cerca, Almada

Uriel Orlow, Forest Essentials, Take 2

Solo show curated by Filipa Oliveira in Casa da Cerca – Contemporary Art Center, in Almada.

“Perhaps for the first time in our history, we are beginning to have a collective awareness both of the reality of climate change that has long been predicted, but also of its immediate and long-term consequences. The result of this is a growing understanding that the world is no longer human-centered, and that to deal with the demands of this crisis a collective inter-species effort is needed. If so far we have treated plants as a backdrops for human history, the works of Uriel Orlow speak to us of plants as indispensable companions in the struggle for planetary survival. Orlow shows us how plants are active agents and not just passive witnesses of history. They are a central link between nature and humans, between various types of knowledge and beliefs, capable of revealing fragilities and inequalities, and carrying ancient lessons.” Filipa Oliveira