Exercises in applied phytosociology by Małgorzata Kaczmarek are a proposal of a post-humanistic approach to the surrounding world of plants. By observing the social behaviour of plants, the artist will create a story about human relations and show the world of plants through social relations, different from those known in our culture. A living exhibition will be created as a result of artistic and botanical inventories carried out in the gallery, in its immediate vicinity, and based on botanical inventories done in recent years in the region of Kujawsko-Pomorskie.
Biography:
Born in 1993 in Warsaw. In 2017, she received her Bachelor’s degree from the Faculty of Artistic Education at the University of Arts in Poznań. She continues her Master’s studies at her home faculty. She feels best working on spatial, social and performative projects, as well as those from the borderland of science and art.
Educator and populariser of knowledge about contemporary art.

Residence Programme

June 15th, 2018, 6pm
Why do artists grow plants? – interactive lecture

June 16th, 2018, 11am
One colour? – art workshop for kids
registration: danutamilewska@galeriabwa.bydgoszcz.pl or by phone: +48 52 339 30 62

August 7th, 2018, 6pm – opening
Exhibition “Małgorzata Kaczmarek – Exercises in Applied Phytosociology” – final of the artistic residence at the Municipal Gallery bwa in Bydgoszcz.
As a result of observing the social behaviour of plants, the artist creates a story about interpersonal relations and shows the world of plants through social relations, different from those known in our culture. She creates a living exhibition based on artistic and botanical inventories, realised in the Municipal Gallery bwa and in its immediate surroundings during her residence in Bydgoszcz, as well as based on botanical inventories realised in recent years in the region of the Kujawsko-Pomorskie District.
An art gallery such as the Municipal Gallery bwa in Bydgoszcz., due to its specificity – i.e. proper lighting of rooms, maintaining appropriate temperature and humidity – is an excellent space to provide plants with the most optimal living conditions.
The opening will be accompanied by an audio-performance for life processes by Piotr Grygor.
Exhibition open until 26.08.2018
Acknowledgements to the Department of Municipal Economy of Bydgoszcz City Hall

August 7th, 2018, 6pm – opening
Exhibition “Małgorzata Kaczmarek – Exercises in Applied Phytosociology” – final of the artistic residence at the Municipal Gallery bwa in Bydgoszcz.
As a result of observing the social behaviour of plants, the artist creates a story about interpersonal relations and shows the world of plants through social relations, different from those known in our culture. She creates a living exhibition based on artistic and botanical inventories, realised in the Municipal Gallery bwa and in its immediate surroundings during her residence in Bydgoszcz, as well as based on botanical inventories realised in recent years in the region of the Kujawsko-Pomorskie District.
An art gallery such as the Municipal Gallery bwa in Bydgoszcz., due to its specificity – i.e. proper lighting of rooms, maintaining appropriate temperature and humidity – is an excellent space to provide plants with the most optimal living conditions.
The opening will be accompanied by an audio-performance for life processes by Piotr Grygor.
Exhibition open until 26.08.2018

Areas of interest:
In my works I try to refer to the feeling of being lost and attempts to reach agreement both at the level of social situations, and of the lack of understanding or confusion in the face of scientific and para-scientific issues. Since 2014, I have been working closely with researchers from the Faculty of Biology of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, trying to talk about scientific problems through the language of art. What I am particularly interested in is relativity, both in interpersonal and inter-species relations. However, I particularly love the plant world and the attempt to get to know their perspective on us and other species.

ON FRANTIC INTUITION AND PLANTS – Danka Milewska talks with Małgorzata Kaczmarek

Danka Milewska: Where did you get so fascinated with the kingdom of plants?
Małgorzata Kaczmarek: There have always been a lot of plants in my family home. We laughed that my mother had not only six children, but also an entire house of plant children. In this house with a garden I had my own flower bed. I spent my pocket money on seedlings, which I bought from my English tutor. That’s how I had my own garden. This adventure ended quickly, because it turned out that my bed is on the anthill, and I am allergic to ant venom. I transferred my care to vines. I also wanted to have a green room, because I liked this colour and it has a calming effect on people. Eventually, it was half green, half rainbow, which was the idea of my mother. As a child, I also read a series of books about a girl who had huge plants in her room. She slept in a hammock hung between them and collected cacti. So I also said – because I was growing cacti myself – that’s the way for me.
Now I have about 70 different plants in my apartment, and each has its own name and its own story. I try not to buy, but to adopt, to reproduce, to get somewhere, for example, to pick up vaccines in public places and restaurants. Although I do not call them by their names. I talk to them, but I address them by “you.” They don’t answer, unfortunately, and I never actually asked if I can call them “you…”
– Your intimate relationship with plants is also a broader view of their significance for life in general?
– I find it interesting how they communicate information to each other, how they come together to secure their benefits. If we had cut down the Amazon forests, we would have practically nothing to breathe. I also learned about a theoretical experiment, that if a huge dome were to be spread over Poland, the vegetation that is in the country would not be sufficient for people, animals and plants, which after all also need oxygen, to survive. The tragedy of the Amazon forests made me all the more frightened at that time. I respect plants, because it is amazing for me that they are organisms that are often much more complicated than we think. They are also very ingenious. They have completely different solutions than people. I am fascinated by huge plants! I would like to go to the Amazon jungle one day and see these great ferns, especially that in one of her books, Sy Montgomery described her journey with an archaeologist who told her that what she saw now and what was there looked the same during the dinosaurs era. Because these are organisms that no longer need evolution, they are self-sufficient; but there are also organisms that still need to invent a lot of solutions to survive, and this is very inspiring!
– What can we learn from plants?
– Plants invented the “Internet” much earlier than we did, and we learned about it much later. I have the impression that the plants are much more democratic than we are.
It is normal for them to help each other, as this increases their chances of survival. Their networks of cooperation are based on symbiosis not only between species, but also between plant, animal and fungi kingdoms.
– Why the title of the Exercise in Applied Phytosociology?
– I like the word “phytosociology” very much. It refers to vegetation communities, but it does not have much to do with the sociology that we practise. I liked the word because it makes me think that it is a sociology based on the life of plants. However, the association is not entirely correct. As an artist, I think I can play with this word a little and, dealing with the philosophy of post-humanism, paradoxically say more about people than about other subjects, because even if we already recognise the subjectivity of a plant, we talk about it from a human point of view, because we are humans. How to convince people to consider a plant as a subject? We can convince them that we can learn something from a plant, so it is worth recognising its subjectivity and dignity.
– How was it working in Bydgoszcz?
– I had a different plan and I thought I knew how to achieve it. The visual emphasis of the exhibition was completely different from what I had planned. The bwa residence had an experimental character. And this is very interesting, because it gave the voice to the plants and they are the strongest point of the exposition. I am maybe a bit sorry that I could not show in a more detailed what I did here, how many people I met and talked to, how many plants I found, but it would be a one-person narrative. And at this point, the exhibition has a chance to become an exercise that encourages a certain kind of fun, reflection and a different kind of look, a bit like conceptual art. And it was actually the point – to look at plants in a different way. The spaces of the gallery and the city have influenced the way the exhibition looks.
– I am glad that in the end there is a frantic intuition in your action, the intuition which you trusted.
– During the last day of assembling there was an absolute revolution for me and finally the shape of the exhibition emerged. The exercises were born here on the spot and were not planned, although paradoxically from the very beginning they have been in the title of the exhibition, and they encourage to look at plants in a different way. After these exercises I have an impression that you can leave the gallery not so much with some knowledge, as with experience.
– You have also moved the drawings from the residence room to the exhibition space. Are these traces of plant movements?
– I was inspired by Darwin’s experiments, who recorded the movements of plants. I didn’t pore over the whole experiment, but I saw drawings that seemed extremely interesting to me. And I did the same with my plants. And in Bydgoszcz I did the same with the local plants. It is, to some extent, automatic drawing, when we don’t think where to direct the line and we do it intuitively. And the plant does not do it deliberately, either; it just changes its position for various reasons. I, too, do not check this thoroughly. Although they are inspired by a scientific experiment, it is more intuitive. And this allows me to get closer to the plant, because I really think about those who were in my resident room and whose movements I was drawing, for a simple reason – after all, this exercise forces me to observe them, and maybe it is even a co-creation.
– How does Bydgoszcz practice phytosociology?
– It is said to be a green city! In terms of development, it certainly is. However, I think that “being green” is not only about developing the space, because there is, however, some subordination of plants to man. It is about respect for wild greenery, which is not necessarily wanted, and which is able to cope in spite of everything. Perhaps we could appreciate such greenery even more, because it is simply close to us and despite strong human pressure it is able to cope and conquers this space. So you can decide not to weed it, let it live, water it when it’s hot.
– What surprised you in Bydgoszcz?
– I was surprised and amused by the fact that everyone knows each other in Bydgoszcz! It is like a large collection of plants connected by roots and everyone knows how to pass on information to each other and it is great. So maybe Bydgoszcz is a green city, after all.