On the occasion of the exhibition of visionary artist and healer Emma Kunz, the Serpentine Galleries’ General Ecology project presented an evening of talks, screenings and performances reflecting on the long and deep relationship between botany and eroticism.
Participants included Chloe Aridjis, Alex Cecchetti, Emanuele Coccia, Jenna Sutela, Laurence Totelin and more, as well as films by Melanie Bonajo, Dineo Seshee Bopape and Victoria Sin. The evening marked the launch of a special, co-edited issue of MAL journal, also titled PLANTSEX.
PROGRAMME: 6:30-10:30pm
Melanie Bonajo, Night Soil: Fake Paradise (2015, video, 32′)
Lucia Pietroiusti and Filipa Ramos, Introduction
Maria Dimitrova, MAL
Chloe Aridjis, Uprooted
Dineo Seshee Bopape, Feelin Cosmic (2008, video, 2′)
Emanuele Coccia, Sex through a Third Party: Flowers and Pollination
Jenna Sutela, Let’s Play: Life, 2015, audio broadcast, 3’11”
Laurence Totelin, Orchids and Lettuce: Plants as Sexual Aids in Antiquity
Alex Cecchetti, Belladonna, 2016
Video and live performance with Rebecca Glover, Matt Harding, Cathy Heller Jones and Ivo Krankowski
Victoria Sin, If I had the words to tell you we wouldn’t be here now (2019, video, 22′)
Jenna Sutela, Oceanic Feeling
Live reading with video by Liquid Light Lab
Visual identity: Giles Round
PLANTSEX took place as a prelude to the forthcoming The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish with Plants, the third instalment in the Serpentine’s year-long symposium and research project on interspecies consciousness, part of the General Ecology project.
PLANTSEX was curated by Lucia Pietroiusti (Curator, General Ecology, Serpentine), writer and editor Filipa Ramos and Kostas Stasinopoulos (Assistant Curator, Live Programmes, Serpentine). Producer: Holly Shuttleworth.
In partnership with the Institut Français du Royaume-Uni and with the support of Fluxus Art Projects.
MAL‘s special issue: PLANTSEX is co-edited by Maria Dimitrova, Lucia Pietroiusti, Filipa Ramos and Kostas Stasinopoulos. MAL is supported by Feeld, the dating app open to all genders and sexual identities.
