a series of public interventions in the Botanical Garden, Bucharest, July 18 – August 16, 2020
part of the quote-unquote programme
a worm breeds a dendrolite breeds a prototype navigates a frontier landscape of multispecies entanglements and onto-epistemic frictions, unearthing the ecological dimensions of their mingled spacetimemattering organization. Resurfacing from beneath the soil, invertebrate molecular agents – vermes, parasites or arthropods – stretch their limbs, unfasten their mandibles and gape their gonopods to pair and entwin their abreast greener kindreds for a more vivid naturecultural scenario to manifest and shimmer. If oaks and elms and cypress would grow backwards, if rinds and mosses would wrap inwards, if all these roots could stem the heights in circles and birds not seal their eyes, lowlifes from drilosphere would softly run riot. Whilst examining the nature of difference between these living forms, Anca Bucur’s sculptures and interventions within the Botanical Garden chart an understanding of matter not only as a product of interrelated semiotic practices, but also as an already composite factor in its iterative aggregations and vital materializations. Soft-bodied organisms, smooth skins, and spontaneous relics are oozing into visibility to reshape the landscape, manufacturing the soil as both their habitat and their end-product. Vermicular intelligence returns open an ecology of the living soil, annexing its blossomed embodiment to conjure a multispecies community of biota, aerating the land and burrowing new life into it.