ON THE MARRIAGES OF PLANTS AT HUMAN NO HUMAN, MAAS

Installation views from "Human non Human". MAAS Museum of Applied Arts. Sydney, NSW, Australia. Curated by Katie Dyer, MAAS, and Dr Lizzie Muller, UNSW.
https://maas.museum/event/human-non-human/

In 1729, Swedish scientist Car Linnaeus published Prelude to the Marriage of Flowers, a system for categorising plants based on their reproductive anatomy. He used terms from human social-sexual relations, such as suitor, maiden, eunuch, husband and wife, to describe plants physiology. "On the Marriage of Plants" by Maria Fernanda Cardoso combines Linnaeus's taxonomy with more recent research into the reciprocal relationships between plants, humans and other pollinators.

We think humans cultivate plants, but Cardoso's project also considers the possibility that it is humans who are in service to plants. Driven by desire, taste, profit and the demands of feeding a growing population, human intervention ensures the reproductive success of certain species. Meanwhile, with vital and unique pollinators such as honey bees under threat, how will the sexual lives of plants continue to impact human survival in unexpected ways? Using deep-focus photography to capture the sex organs of flowers, Cardoso explores the beauty, seduction and interspecies relationships of reproduction and survival.

SEX

In her series On the Marriage of Plants, artist Maria Fernanda Cardoso combines Carl Linnaeus 18th century taxonomic systems for categorising plants and flowers with more recent research into the reciprocal relationships between plants, humans and others pollinators. Using deep-focus photography to capture the sex organs of flowers, Cardoso explores the beauty, seduction and interspecies relationships of reproduction and survival.

REPRODUCTION AND RECIPROCITY

For humans and non-humans species to survive they must reproduce. But reproduction involves complex processes of reciprocity, entangled relationships and evolving technologies. For example, the honeybee drone collecting nectar and pollen mutually benefits the plants it feeds on by spreading their genes for their ongoing survival.
Humans have often placed themselves at the centre of a world in which other living species are bred to serve their needs. But it is possible that while we think we breed domesticated crops for our own purposes, humans may in fact be in service to them, ensuring their ongoing survival?
The writer Michael Pollan suggests humans have been manipulated by beauty, desire and taste to cultivate, preserve and ensure the survival of certain plant species.

Text by Katie Dyer and Dr Lizzie Muller.