Nature unveiled or Stories about plants and workers is an ongoing artistic/curatorial hybrid project based on the exploration of the issues of (cultural / cultivating) labour and the author’s intimate fascination with flora (the plants he curates and cares about).
The primary focus of the project is to question the position of the workers in relation to the plants surrounding them, and to examine what can arise from this unusual interaction; perhaps only the possibility of creating a utopia, tranquillity, and contemplation or building different ideological and social models that relate to the concepts of non-work and post-work imaginaries which at the same time question the capitalist sins such as laziness and leisure.
The project was conceived in 2018 as part of a two-month residency Q21 in Vienna and presented as a one-hour lecture performance in English at the Belvedere Botanical Garden. A Fifteen-minute-long edition of the Nature unveiled or Stories about plants and workers was also presented and awarded at the 91. Spring exhibition organized by ULUS in Belgrade. By now, Bjeličić presented this project in Berlin, Belgrade, Podgorica, and Skopje.
A recently produced video essay lauds the Arboretum of The Faculty of Forestry, University of Belgrade, the institution that acquired the artwork for its collection in 2021.
Biography
Vladimir Bjeličić (1983, Belgrade) is active in the independent curatorial and artistic scene. His practice is based on the representation of corporeality in the digital era, translation of curatorial practice through performance, and ongoing articulation of the ideas of collectiveness and equal (re)distribution of commons in regards to interspecies communication (man and machine/man and plant). Bjeličić is one of the founding members of the post-curatorial formation Vocal Curatorial Syndrome and the drag collective Ephemeral Confession.
Collaborators
Camera: Irena Canić
Editing: Andrej Ostroški
Sound design: Marija Balubdžić
The production of this video was supported by Stanica – Service for Contemporary Dance
