Catalogue > At random

Word for Forest is a cinematic journey that travels from the Botanical Garden in Copenhagen to Santiago Comaltepec in the mountains of Oaxaca. The film records a seed's displacement from Mexico, where it was collected by the botanist Frederik Liebmann in 1842, to the Botanical Garden in Copenhagen. The film returns to the plant`s original home, the unique habitat of the cloud forest. The cloud forest in this region has an exceptionally high biodiversity, where specific oaks and pines grow side by side with a rich plant life that is not found anywhere else. In Santiago Comaltepec, the forest is taken care of by the community, which has long resided in this area, but has not always had the right to use the land. Both the Spanish colonial empire and the Mexican state have previously demanded control over the forest. In the 1980s, the community fought for the forest's rights. Through "comunalidad", the forest became common land and only the naturally fallen wood can be logged. The film invites one to listen to the rhythms of the language and the sounds of the forest and to absorb the variations in the many ferns.

In recent years, I have been investigating different botanical collections. These plant collections show traces of geopolitical conditions not only within the practices of botany but also map out colonial territorializations. This work including, The Pages of Day and Night (2015) and The Cloud Document (2017) attempts to examine some of the consequences of botanical systemization.I am interested in how we conceive historical matters in relationship to our daily activities and the connection between workspace and filmic space. I often work with different kinds of archives and the practice of collecting is a recurring subject in my practice - The personal, ethical and political dimensions of it. I work with blind spots' that which contains spatial dimensions, and a set of coordinates of unnoticed, undisclosed material.