Entangled Garden for Plant Memory – A Solo-Exhibition of Janet Laurence

A psychedelic scene where the real and the fake blend

This spring, Yuxiu Art Museum invited Australian artist Janet Laurence to Taiwan to present a large-scale solo exhibition "In the Garden, Plants Memories Tangle". This exhibition is also the first challenge of Yuxiu Art Museum through the use of space installations throughout the exhibition concept. This document also invites Professor Zhang Wanzhen of the National Taipei University of the Arts Museum Research Institute as the curator, and cooperates with relevant domestic academic research institutions to select exhibits. The point of view of the discussion.

In her more than three decades of creative career, Laurence uses video, digital printing, taxidermy and other ready-made objects to create an atmosphere that immerses and trembles the viewer. Through the space exhibition, she reveals the current issue of coexistence between man and nature, and expresses her concern for the environment and the disappearance of species with "empathy" as the core of her creation. The exhibition extends from the first floor to the third floor exhibition hall, with the themes of "root", "leaf" and "habitat" respectively, leading the audience to gradually explore the artist's ecological garden.

A dead terminal tree from Xiufeng Village, Lugu Township, Nantou, lying in the center of the exhibition hall on the first floor, is the subject of the on-site production of Heartshock – Blood and chlorophyll. The broken branches of trees are wrapped in bandages, and the preserved owl specimens stand on it, surrounded by fungi, minerals, soil, laboratory glassware and other objects.

Entering the "leaf" layer on the second floor, you can see "Conversations with plants", a large number of video works on the wall. Shaking and other visual effects, weaving phantom dreams beyond the real sense. In the center of the exhibition are hundreds of live plants full of vitality. "The force that through the green fuse drives the flower" (The force that through the green fuse drives the flower) and "Inside the flower" (Inside the flower) based on plant life history and specimen knowledge system The dismantling and reconstruction of the works further highlights the artist's understanding and rich imagination of the natural ecology.

The "habitat" on the third floor is interpreted by "Birdsong", a memorial hall for animal life, and "In the Breath of the Forest" composed of a large tulle like a ghost. Dozens of rod-shaped bird specimens lying on their backs in the circle seem to be in a mourning ceremony, and the sound of habitat resounding like a variation of a mourning song, the space implies the persecution of living species by human beings and their concerns about the future and the future. A strong warning of morality and ethics.

Special thanks to

This exhibition is particularly grateful to the Zoological Museum, Herbarium and Geological Herbarium under the National Taiwan University Museum Group, as well as the Special Biological Research and Conservation Center of the Agricultural Committee of the Executive Yuan for lending precious and rare display specimens and organic life forms, so that this exhibition can take advantage of this exhibition. Opportunity to create a misty poetic realm through the artist's hand with a more sensual and illusionary gesture. This exhibition attempts to interpret the land under our feet through the eyes of the artist and improvisation. "In the Garden, Plants Memories Intertwined - Janet Lawrence Solo Exhibition" is poetic yet full of cautionary prophecies, which is full of contemporary people's close relationship with nature. The complex characteristics of entanglement and symbiosis are welcome to come and watch.