House plants are never just house plants (RESEARCH)
Observing, living beside, and caring for her houseplants started Areli Moran off on an exploration of the migratory nature of plant life. Recognising her own needs and strategies as an immigrant through her plants, Moran’s new work fuses the natural world, sound, video, and her body into a meditative collage on what changes and what remains when one moves.
How are plants related to migration?
What is my interaction with this social mechanism as an immigrant?
Past events:
Feb – April 2023
First research period supported by Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media within the program NEUSTART KULTUR.
Inspired, in one hand, by the publication the Age of Plants by Anne Helen Petersen. There she talks about the history of houseplants and its interaction with the present society. On the other hand by the transportation of Cochineal to Europe and nopal (Prickly Pear Cactus), the cactus that host Cochineal. While my artistic work touch upon subjects that come from personal experiences such as my identity as LGBTQ+, my fear of hair or my surgeries on my ovaries and uterus,
With this research I wanted to get close in to a “new” subject to me, something that interested me but didn’t have jet, any specific impact or event on my life. Plants was the chosen subject with focus on migration and its interaction with society.
Trough out this research I discovered that plants as been a part of my journey from long long time ago only not on my projects.
Research advisor: Sasha Amaya
19 – 22 June, 2023 – Nuestras Plantas – Laboratorio
Centro cultural plaza Fátima. Monterrey, Mexico.
A laboratory where, together with the participants, we explored the surroundings of Cultural Center. There we meditate and integrate our bodies in to the environment and due to the extreme heat and dryness of the city we were force to explore the inside of the space, where we transported our memories of the early practices in to the different galleries of the cultural center.
There were interesting discoveries while researching about the trees and architecture of the place, of example one of the most beautiful trees of the space originally comes from Asia and is considere an invasive space in south USA which is only 300 km to Monterrey. As well the beautiful leaves are use in herbal medicine, well explore in China but Mexico.
All the facts together brought the questions: how and why did it got here? Were there a Chinese community in the area? or, was just some other of those plants that some one bring to other place because they are beautiful?
22 June, 2023 – The house plant project – Performance, installation, lecture.
Work in progress showing.
Centro cultural plaza Fátima. Monterrey, Mexico.
The first materialization of this project is presented in an installation-performance-conversation format. The audience had a guided tour on the premises of the venue, to observe some particularities that were discover during the previous workshop with local artist. Afterward they are welcome to the theatre, to find it intervened with natural and artificial materials from the town that occupied all the seats and the stage.
With a low light atmosphere, audience are invited to use their phone lamps to observe the wall printings, photography sequences that show the growth of certain green areas captured by Areli during the research. Projections on the ceilings from natural and loud spaces, like rivers. Constant sound of water during the whole performance enhance with live electroacoustic sound by Rodrigo Zarate.
Guided by the performance voice the audience rich the stage where they first observe a performance by Areli, then to capture moments with their cameras, following they are invited to transforme the space by moving the installation pieces. To finalise, the audience are invited to join the performer and she guide a meditative moment, to feel the floor, the earth, to connect with themselves and slowly start to shake their bodies, a meditation that rich a transe where everybody is dancing to the earth.
expectante.net 