„If plants are our oldest teachers, as Céline Baumann surmises, what might we learn from them? What knowledge, which stories do they have to share? One key lesson to be learned from the botanical world would be the ubiquity of queerness. No matter where you look in nature, it’s there. As part of an ongoing investigation into the diversity of gender expression and sexual behaviour in plants, Baumann brings together specimens, illustrations, pictures and stories. Yet the research she presents goes beyond the mere recognition that plants are often unisexual or bisexual, hermaphroditic or transitionally transgender, depending on their age, the time of day or environmental conditions. What she endeavours to convey, rather, is that such knowledge can be put to good use: to make the ground we live on – whether on a domestic, urban or national level – “porous and permeable” and “welcoming” for all.“ Catherine Nichols, Creative Mediator Manifesta 14 Prishtina.

Photography: Majlinda Hoxha / Manifesta 14 Prishtina; Alena Halmes / depatriarchise design; Sandra Maier / Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein; Jiří Thýn / Viper Gallery; Istvan Virag / OAT

Curation: Catherine Nichols / Manifesta 14 Prishtina; Christiane Meyer-Stoll / Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein

→ Read the interview „Plant Pleasures and Intimacies“, in l’esprit créateur, by Céline Baumann in conversation with Natania Meeker and Antónia Szabari, 2023 (English)

→ Read the essay “Queer Nature” by Céline Baumann published in the special issue of archithese on queerness, 2020 (English)

→ Read the essay “Ce que nous dit l’intimité du kiwi et du crocus” by Céline Baumann in the independent magazine mille cosmos, 2022 (French)

→ Listen to the podcast “Queer Nature” of the Botanical Mind Online, Camden Art Centre, London, 2020 (external link)