Flowering Transition
For many centuries, floral trade has developed into an art of manipulation. The growing consumerist culture, intertwined with the flower trade boom, led to the point where flowers became treated as commodities, ruled by the global principles of the market. As the industry grew and customers’ preferences changed, a quest to create the perfect flower blossomed.
The ideal plant would not only suit our subjective and rather questionable taste, but also meet the high requirements of the breeders and sellers, who, backed up by geneticists and engineers, manipulated the flowers to obtain brighter colours, straighter stems, and longer vase lives, all while sacrificing the plants' other qualities such as scent, which, in the natural environment, is vital for the plant's reproduction and survival. Flowering Transition emerged as an ongoing speculative research project fueled by our curiosity and an extensive analysis of the cut-flower industry, and the science and technology that fuel it. Discarded flowers found at one of London’s flower markets triggered our conceptual and material experiments, laying a foundation for our studio’s core interests and values.
Used to the fragrant flowers from your childhood memories, you continue to smell the flowers in a ritualistic and futile gesture.
Following this rigid conceptual framework, we have experimented with processing waste flowers and creating unique artworks that highlighted their intangible qualities: their ephemeral colours, that, pressed onto canvas with a traditional mangle, formed bright, abstract patterns; their perishable materiality, which, treated as source material, was condensed in an archetypal form of a vessel; and distilling their scent, which revealed striking differences between flowers bred in private gardens, offered in flower shops, and sold in supermarkets.
After analysing the economic (genetic-, transport- and trade-related) aspects of flower breeding, we have also begun to work with plant specialists and engineers in an attempt to create a super bloom. Together, we aimed at creating a plant that would meet all of the industry’s requirements. But since perfection is always monstrous, our work became a balancing act between what was expected and what was possible. Altering the incompatible species by hand and photographing the monstrous outcomes, we have then documented our trials in a series of botanical engravings illustrated by Clara Lacy. Finally, the imagined superbloom acquired a palpable, three-dimensional body. Scanned and 3D printed, the impossible plant has been turned into a nylon, bone-white sculpture. Haunting within its glass cabinet, the Monster Flower became a lasting symbol and a reminder of the compromise between longevity and scent, colour and shape, what geneticists can imagine and what flowers will allow.
The entire project was summarised in a richly illustrated publication documenting every step of the journey, and revealing Marcin's family's flower-breeding background.
First presented during Marcin Rusak's graduation show, "Inflorescence and Other Artefacts" in London in 2015, artifacts from the Flowering Transition series were showcased in various institutional contexts, from internationally acclaimed group exhibitions to self-initiated concepts in Milan and Ljubljana. A decade later, the project continues to inform the studio's ongoing endeavours, leading us to new creative avenues.
First presented during Marcin Rusak's graduation show, "Inflorescence and Other Artefacts" in London in 2015, artifacts from the Flowering Transition series were showcased in various institutional contexts, from internationally acclaimed group exhibitions to self-initiated concepts in Milan and Ljubljana. A decade later, the project continues to inform the studio's ongoing endeavours, leading us to new creative avenues.
| YEAR: 2014-Ongoing |
TEAM: Marcin Rusak |
SPECIALISTS: Ignacio Genco (3d specialist) Andreas Verheijn (Flower engineer) Dr. Wouter Verkerke (Researcher) Robert Ossevoort (Project Manager DAVIN3I) |
EXHIBITIONS: BIO 27, Ljubljana Unnatural Practice, Milan Plant Fever, Grand Hornu/Zurich/Dresden Inflorescence and Other Artefacts, London |