Eva-Maria Lopez: Phyto-Travellers

When Christopher Columbus returned from his voyage to the "New World" in 1492, he brought numerous plants back to Europe – including corn, tomatoes, and potatoes. Plants which were introduced here from other regions of the world since that time are called neophytes – "new plants".

At first, these were primarily crop plants which were spread deliberately under colonialism in order to generate profits from their worldwide cultivation. Later, decorative plants followed suit, collected and imported by researchers and so-called plant hunters for their beautiful and exotic appearance. In our gardens, examples such as rhododendron, cherry laurel, or bamboo not only tell a story of global plant migration but also reflect the gardening trends and ideals of various historical periods. They also speak of ecological problems which neophytes cause in times of climate change and the global exchange of goods. In that context, we call them invasive species. 

Along their journey across the continents, many plants also lost their names – they were renamed in the West by their so-called discoverers. Camellias, for instance, a relative of the tea plant, have been called Cha or Chai in Asia for millennia. However, in eighteenth-century Europe, they were christened "Camellia" by the Swedish naturalist Carl von Linné in honor of Jesuit priest Georg Joseph Kamel. The history of neophytes thus not only shows as a transcontinental history of botanical migration: its record is also irrevocably inscribed with the history of colonialism – a dossier of symbolic violence and appropriation. 

Phyto-Travellers, the newly developed project for the ZKM | Kubus Subraum by Paris- and Karlsruhe-based artist Eva-Maria Lopez, places this aspect of cultural appropriation and the domestication of plants from other regions and cultural contexts front and center. Lopez’s installation features the kinds of imported and renamed decorative plants which have become so deeply rooted in our gardens that they are often perceived as native plants and completely natural parts of familiar landscapes. The installation reproduces the basic shape of the "Niña" – one of the two ships from Columbus’s fleet that first brought the "new plants" to Europe. The resulting indoor garden of neophytes sits atop freight pallets and calls to mind the botanical heritage of a globalized flora. At the same time, Phyto-Travellers is a living archive that traces the close entanglement of natural and cultural history in a gentle yet clear gesture.