Sketches for Gardening: Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw II
Ink on paper, variable dimensions
2025
Six clusters of roots from plants' species that were spontaneously growing at the borders of the former hospital CCA Ujazdowski Castle, were drawn on paper. The castle is located in Warsaw and was part of a network of hospitals in resistance during WWI.
Each cluster of roots is connected to stories about the former Hospital as a place of medical underground research, healing and resistance during the occupation of Warsaw by the Nazis between 1939 - 1945. The Castle and former Hospital is located in the center of Warsaw and keeps in its soil the memory of bombardment with an extensive accumulation of calcium and other minerals that disrupted the soil. Feral and ruderal plants that have grown freely after the end of WWl are markers, not only of the toxicity and new metabolisms of the soil in post-war Warsaw, ruderal plants are also messengers and metabolizers of trauma.
Each plant found has a legacy of herbalist knowledge and secular uses. Herbalist ontologies from the past are still resonating with most feral plants. The drawings are understood as a way of invoking the intermingling of the plants' roots, reconnecting stories between botany and history. Stories are channeled and placed among the drawings, signaling each cluster of species and what they have to say to the actual space of the former hospital, the city and the viewer.
Commission by the CCA Uzjadowski Castle for the show "Soil and Friends", curated by Marianna Dobkowska and Edith Jeřábková. Research collaborators: Anna Wandzel and Krysia Jedrzejewska-szmek.
2025
Six clusters of roots from plants' species that were spontaneously growing at the borders of the former hospital CCA Ujazdowski Castle, were drawn on paper. The castle is located in Warsaw and was part of a network of hospitals in resistance during WWI.
Each cluster of roots is connected to stories about the former Hospital as a place of medical underground research, healing and resistance during the occupation of Warsaw by the Nazis between 1939 - 1945. The Castle and former Hospital is located in the center of Warsaw and keeps in its soil the memory of bombardment with an extensive accumulation of calcium and other minerals that disrupted the soil. Feral and ruderal plants that have grown freely after the end of WWl are markers, not only of the toxicity and new metabolisms of the soil in post-war Warsaw, ruderal plants are also messengers and metabolizers of trauma.
Each plant found has a legacy of herbalist knowledge and secular uses. Herbalist ontologies from the past are still resonating with most feral plants. The drawings are understood as a way of invoking the intermingling of the plants' roots, reconnecting stories between botany and history. Stories are channeled and placed among the drawings, signaling each cluster of species and what they have to say to the actual space of the former hospital, the city and the viewer.
Commission by the CCA Uzjadowski Castle for the show "Soil and Friends", curated by Marianna Dobkowska and Edith Jeřábková. Research collaborators: Anna Wandzel and Krysia Jedrzejewska-szmek.
