Publication of the album Flowers of Evil by the Triennale in Milano in the frame of the Home Sweet Home exhibition.
“ Many of the ornamental plant species with which we share the domestic space, taking care of them daily without wondering too much about their origin, were imported to Europe from exotic climes, generating what Céline Baumann defines as a “cognitive dissonance between the decorative aspect of potted plants and a brutal colonial history”. The artist and landscape architect sheds light on the origins of those species and the journeys they have had to make to intertwine with our lives.
This small yet invaluable collection of stories will prove useful for at least two reasons. On the one hand, it will help us to better understand that our way of relating to nature has profound political and ecological implications, even when we are at home. On the other it will make clear, yet again, that the notion of “home sweet home” is a cover – and has been for centuries – for much bitterness and countless daily abuses: expressions of the habitual domination of one gender over another and of one species over others, which today are no longer sustainable.” Nina Bassoli, curator Triennale Milano