VICTORIA AMAZONICA
2015, Berlin. Video, color, audio, 22 min., Full HD.
2015, Berlin. Video, color, audio, 22 min., Full HD.
VICTORIA AMAZONICA is the first chapter of a historiographical series about the Botanical Garden Berlin-Dahlem and the origin of its tropical plants. The different geographies and time-frames contained in the garden are accessed through video narratives, in a spectral experience with its space and current materialities. The ongoing project begins with a fragment over the Amazonian Water Lily plant and its colonial roots. How to contemplate one of the largest aquatic plants in the world, without drowning in its reflections?
Using photographies collected in Archives and internet of what seams to be a western ritual inside botanical gardens from the early 20th century to the present day, the Essayfilm addresses a cultural heritage crisis, in which the artist question her own knowledge about the Amazon forest and its victoria-régia plant, in a confrontation with a colonized imaginary.
