Les Doigts En Fleur ingenerates a powerful temptation to operate a semantic hacking of the concept of res extensa — the physical realm in the expression of René Descartes — to apply it to the concept of nature summoned and put in reaction with visitors by the work of artist Marina Cavadini. An extended system, aiming to redraw the accepted boundaries of both artificial and natural, using on this purpose the most iconic space representing the so-called artificial nature: a botanic garden.
Les Doigts En Fleur
A performance from the HotHouse series questions the limits of nature at the Botanic Gardens in Turin, involving all living actors in the reactivation of an architectural space.
Marina Cavadini, Les Doigts En Fleur, Turin Botanical Garden, 2019. Courtesy HotHouse.
Marina Cavadini, Les Doigts En Fleur, Turin Botanical Garden, 2019. Courtesy HotHouse.
Marina Cavadini, Les Doigts En Fleur, Turin Botanical Garden, 2019. Courtesy HotHouse.
Marina Cavadini, Les Doigts En Fleur, Turin Botanical Garden, 2019. Courtesy HotHouse.
Marina Cavadini, Les Doigts En Fleur, Turin Botanical Garden, 2019. Courtesy HotHouse.
Marina Cavadini, Les Doigts En Fleur, 2019. latex with South Africa Greenhouse. Performer: Yu Tian. Photo: Brando Prizzon, courtesy HotHouse.
Marina Cavadini, Les Doigts En Fleur (2019), South Africa Greenhouse. Performer: Giorgia Castellano. Photo: Brando Prizzon, courtesy HotHouse.
Marina Cavadini, Les Doigts En Fleur, 2019. latex with Tropical Greenhouse. Performer: Arianna Spada and Michelangela Battistella. Photo: Brando Prizzon, courtesy HotHouse.
Marina Cavadini, Les Doigts En Fleur, 2019. silicone with Succulents. Performer: Chiara Talarico and Ginevra Ghiaroni. Photo: Brando Prizzon, courtesy HotHouse.
Marina Cavadini, Les Doigts En Fleur, 2019. latex with Nymphaea Alba. Performer: Arianna Spada. Photo: Brando Prizzon, courtesy HotHouse.
Marina Cavadini, Les Doigts En Fleur, 2019. tulle with South Africa Greenhouse. Performer: Giada Bikaï. Photo: Brando Prizzon, courtesy HotHouse.
Marina Cavadini, Les Doigts En Fleur, 2019. lycra with Nepenthes. Performer: Giulia Kapelanczyk. Photo: Brando Prizzon, courtesy HotHouse.
Marina Cavadini, Les Doigts En Fleur, 2019. lycra with Strelitzia reginae. Performer: Mariacristina Cavagnoli. Photo: Brando Prizzon, courtesy HotHouse.
Marina Cavadini, Les Doigts En Fleur, 2019. latex with Monstera deliciosa, Performer: Olga Canavesio. Photo: Brando Prizzon, courtesy HotHouse.
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- Giovanni Comoglio
- 10 June 2019
- Turin
Les Doigts En Fleur is part of the HotHouse series curated by Giovanna Repetto: a project articulated in several episodes, each one investigating those boundaries apparently separating nature from artifact, proposing to the visitors of botanical gardens, in different cities, “…a critical vision of the contemporary notion of landscape, as a result of the relationship between human and nature, of the contemporary threats to the environment we live in. (…) The typology of the botanical garden is the object of such attention, as it preserves and represents the highest expression of artificial dimension, in its pursuit of imitation of reality. (…) Landscapes artificially created from scratch, proper ecosystems kept alive by machines, gardeners and botanists, they could quickly become the set for an archaeology of landscapes.”
In her interpretation of the historical spaces of Orto Botanico in Turin, Marina Cavadini has kept following her reflection as an interdisciplinary artist, creating a physical, visual, contaminative interaction with the whole nature contributing to the life of the Orto. This nature integrates architecture, as an element which may result even less artificial than the content and the concept itself of, for instance, a tropical greenhouse. The Garden, the old and new Greenhouses become therefore the setting of a performance and a video installation available for the entire duration of the show: “…In ‘Les Doigts En Fleur’ — literally, 'Blooming Fingers’ — the fingers bloom, blur, and become thorns, become leaves, through a collection of accessories made from latex, lycra, tulle, and silicon. A tableu vivant thus activates the interaction between the flora and architecture of the Turin Botanical Garden.” A general re-questioning of the limits of nature ends up by involving all the newly integrated actors in a process of reactivation of an architectural space.
- Les Doigts En Fleur
- Marina Cavadini
- Giovanna Repetto
- Turin Botanical Garden
- viale Mattioli 25, Torino
- until June 18, 2019
- Alberto Nidola, Arianna Spada, Bea Viinamäki, Chiara Talarico, Demetra (Dimitri Gadaldi), Francesca Mariano, Bikaï Giada Ngo hell, Ginevra Ghiaroni, Giorgia Castellano, Giulia Kapelanczyk, Jing Li, Mara Roberto, Mariacristina Cavagnoli, Mattia Giordano, Michelangela Battistella, Olga Canavesio, Yu Tian, Zhou Yixue.
Marina Cavadini at the Turin Botanical Garden for the HotHouse series.
Marina Cavadini at the Turin Botanical Garden for the HotHouse series.
Marina Cavadini at the Turin Botanical Garden for the HotHouse series.
Marina Cavadini at the Turin Botanical Garden for the HotHouse series.
Marina Cavadini at the Turin Botanical Garden for the HotHouse series.
Marina Cavadini at the Turin Botanical Garden for the HotHouse series.
Marina Cavadini at the Turin Botanical Garden for the HotHouse series.
Marina Cavadini at the Turin Botanical Garden for the HotHouse series.
Marina Cavadini at the Turin Botanical Garden for the HotHouse series.
Marina Cavadini at the Turin Botanical Garden for the HotHouse series.
Marina Cavadini at the Turin Botanical Garden for the HotHouse series.
Marina Cavadini at the Turin Botanical Garden for the HotHouse series.
Marina Cavadini at the Turin Botanical Garden for the HotHouse series.
Marina Cavadini at the Turin Botanical Garden for the HotHouse series.