The Green Brush at MAGAZIN
‘Green Brush: The Technology of Domestic Plants’ is the first solo exhibition of Some Place Studio at MAGAZIN gallery in Vienna. The exhibit is both a physical installation and a hybrid five-week event, taking place online as much as in person.
The theme revolves around the juxtaposition between the ever increasing presence of technology in our homes and our desire to reconnect with nature through the use of indoor plants. The exhibit takes the form of a gadget-heavy home with plants sprouting from domestic appliances, creating unlikely sculptural objects. Participants are invited to contribute to and receive from the exhibit through virtual discussion groups and take part in the exhibit’s deconstruction at its closing.
SPS DESIGN TEAM
Bika Rebek, Daniel Prost, Ngozi Olojede, Axelle Dechelette, Juliane Röthig
SQUARE METERS
86
Contributing artist:
Anna Paul
Experts and contributors:
Valeria Meiller, Elena Seeger and Simon De Dreuille (Botanical Agency), Lily Kwong
One of the most enduring design trends of the past decade is the integration of a growing number of plants into domestic and business interiors as a way to “reconnect” with nature. A parallel trend to that of indoor plants has been to visually reduce technology, particularly in the home. While the plants have become more apparent, large and lush, the technological objects have a decreased visual presence, becoming thin, wireless and sleek.
The Green Brush is questioning these two opposing trends, looking at plants as technological objects backed by a billion dollar industry, optimized for climate controlled interiors and minimal gardening know-how. While plants are placed in isolation in individual pots, the internet is providing an ever denser web of information, connecting computers, appliances and humans to a global network. The Green Brush is alluding to digital processes done in software like Photoshop, where greenwashing is applied to digital images as a layer of thin veneer. Similarly, sustainability and the use of plants in architecture is often a mere decorative feature, using the visual qualities of plants for the illusion of an integrated ecology.
The Green Brush is questioning these two opposing trends, looking at plants as technological objects backed by a billion dollar industry, optimized for climate controlled interiors and minimal gardening know-how. While plants are placed in isolation in individual pots, the internet is providing an ever denser web of information, connecting computers, appliances and humans to a global network. The Green Brush is alluding to digital processes done in software like Photoshop, where greenwashing is applied to digital images as a layer of thin veneer. Similarly, sustainability and the use of plants in architecture is often a mere decorative feature, using the visual qualities of plants for the illusion of an integrated ecology.
The exhibition takes the form of a gadget-heavy home with plants sprouting from domestic appliances, creating unlikely sculptural objects, and features the work ‘Plant Potty’ by artist Anna Paul. Invited thought leaders will host curated discussion groups around the Green Brush concept in five weeks of public hybrid programming with audiences invited to join virtually. At the show’s end — which will take the form of a live-streamed event — local participants will be encouraged to take home the plant sculptures, dissolving the exhibition and moving the plants into functionally domestic spaces.
