TURNER Prize nominees will be displaying their work at a massive exhibition in Edinburgh’s Royal Botanic Garden.
In the Eddy of the Stream will feature art from the collectives Sakiya and Cooking Sections ranging from sculptures, to installations, to audio pieces.
As part of the Climate House programme, the exhibition aims to draw connections between Scotland and Palestine whilst bringing attention to the harm ecosystems are facing and the effects this could have on the world.
Cooking Sections said: “The exhibition at Climate House has been a great opportunity to interlink botanical struggles between Scotland and Palestine. It’s a culmination of a three-year research process with scientists, botanists and researchers that expands the work we have been doing in Skye since 2016.
“We are excited to exhibit alongside Sakiya, who have been a source of inspiration in the way they work critically across heritage, food, farming, art and culture to reimagine relations between people and their surroundings under the occupation. But more importantly, how to open up new horizons from the ground up.”
Cooking Sections worked alongside Royal Botanic Garden of Edinburgh’s (RBGE) Dr Chris Ellis as well as horticulturists and archivists during a three-year research project showing the interdependent relationship between Scottish wild salmon and forests ahead of the exhibition of their work Salmo-Breeding Forest.
Palestinian art collective Sakiya explores the role of plants in connection to land struggles in its home country.
Using sound and other media, it looks to highlight how botany has become integral to the conflict in the country by highlighting historical and modern stories such as how the British ruled culturally significant plants as weeds in the 1900s.
Sakiya said: “As part of our practice to challenge botanical imperialist practices of taming the wild, green-washing, Western classification systems, erasure of plants, stories, and practices, and modernist notions of agricultural productivity, we present 33 weeds that were brought under attack during the British mandate period in Palestine.
“Through a communal practice to identify historic and new botanical imaginaries, stories will be collected and composed in Palestine about these 33 weeds throughout the exhibition period and sent to the Climate House to be presented alongside the original weed pressings found in the RBGE archive.”
The exhibition is part of the Edinburgh Art Festival.
In the Eddy of the Stream will run from July 1 to September 18 at RBGE’s Climate House (formerly Inverleith House).
More information on the exhibition can be found at the Edinburgh Art Festival’s website.
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