Plants and Us – or the Prospects of the Plantropocene

July 23 – September 30, 2026

Opening: July 23, 2026, 7:00 p.m.

Participating artists:  
Paul Horn and Lotte Lyon (AT), Mariann Fercsik (HU-GB), Kamilla Szeli (HU), Levente Korossy-Khaill HU), conceptual drive-by (eden_jeneses and Omon Wynfryh)  (HU), Anna Zilahi (HU)

Curator: Erzsébet Pilinger

The scent and beauty of flowers make many of us enthusiastic, and we often express our feelings with flowers, both in everyday life and when celebrating or at a final farewell.

But our relationship with plants is broader and more complex. In fact, in many ways, plants define our lives. They can provide food, medicine, fuel, materials for making things, or even substances used in rituals and spiritual practices. Being around them can bring comfort and even help our mental healing. It's hard to imagine existing without them.

But in this relationship, humans are still mostly the dominant side. To get our food or fulfill our desires, we make plans and then carry them out: creating gardens, doing agricultural activities, planting forests or cutting down trees, and even working with aquatic plants. Humans have been tending to, protecting, and propagating plants since time immemorial, collecting and sowing seeds, pollinating them or  freeding them from pests, whether their goals are practical or ritual.

According to anthropologist Debbora Battaglia, we creat "entire worlds that turn around plants, sites in which people and their attendant techniques, technologies, and magic get caught in the spiralling whorl of plant beings and doings."

The garden is one of these places, the garden that, by becoming a cultural form, also points to social positions, and even hints at our ideas and ideals about the whole world. But gardens can also serve scientific purposes. Botanical gardens make it possible to learn about species by using methods of classification and providing lab conditions and they can help to get information not just on how to use exotic or newly discovered plants, but they can also play a role in their survival. Vertical gardens not only protect from the heat, but also provide space and food for insects.
No matter where plants live, they involve entire ecologies of other living beings in their life rhythms, including birds, fungi, and microorganisms, along with insects. They provide food and establish such mutual relationships that contribute to their survival and fertility. Research, however, shows that humans might be the best suited among all other living beings to respond to their needs.

But their lifestyle, their ability to cooperate, mimic, and regenerate can also teach us important lessons. Knowledge about species that went extinct in the past can help us understand ourselves and avoid previous mistakes, while research into evidence of plant perception in living species today might offer solutions to current crises. That is, if we give space to everything and—moving beyond the perspective of botanical imperialism—accept the needs of plants for larger areas as well. And since the role of plant systems in the water cycle and retention is crucial, and besides, the shade of trees and bushes provides direct protection, living in a way that respects the needs of plants could lead to a less uncertain future for us humans as well. 

If, instead of the capitalist-era operations and rhythms that exploit and destroy natural beings, including plants and soil, we learn how to connect with the life of plants, and empathy becomes central in our relationships, it could be a chance for the beginning of a new era. Using Natasha Myers' expression, the plantropocene. Her suggestion doesn't just raise temporal aspects, but rather points to relationships through which new possibilities can emerge for all living beings.
The works displayed in our exhibition alluse to the potential of thinking about and interacting with plants.

Further information soon.