2024

When Silence Has Something to Tell

Outdoor textile installation, created with the support of textile designer Renée Bonte and production Yannick Rol

Exhibition Heksenkruid –Decolonising Botany

Beelden op de Berg 2024, Wageningen, the Netherlands

1 June - 15 September, 2024

In the Belmonte Arboretum, one can find a great collection of trees from all around the world. However, the diversity of trees all refers to a monoculture narrative, which is modern science stemming from Western classification and taxonomy. Trees and plants encompass so much more than their Latin names, they contain memories and untold stories. One may only start to listen to the stories when they listen in silence because silence has something to tell.

The textile installation Weaving Realities Collective presents at the exhibition Decolonising Botany is intended as a storytelling journey of the artists’ personal experiences towards decolonial listening. The icons in the three circles represent three different phases: the iLLusion of modernity; the Loss of eco-cultural diversity, and the Listening to cultures, traditions and worldviews beyond botany and taxonomy, in order to unlock a plurality of earth knowledges.