Theatrum Botanicum

Uriel Orlow

„Theatrum Botanicum“ by Uriel Orlow encompasses three individual short films and looks to the botanical world as a stage for politics at large through film, photography, installation and sound.

Uriel Orlow‘s „Theatrum Botanicum“ trilogy will be screened as part of UNEXPECTED LESSONS #2 Decolonizing Nature, Sep 13-15 at Goethe Morph* Iceland at Nordic House. The program on Sep 14 & 15 will be live-streamed from Reykjavik via the website of Nordic House.

Working from the dual vantage points of South Africa and Europe, Theatrum Botanicum considers plants as both witnesses and actors in history, and as dynamic agents – linking nature and humans, rural and cosmopolitan medicine, tradition and modernity – across different geographies, histories and systems of knowledge, with a variety of curative, spiritual and economic powers.

Three single-channel films, sound works, photographs, a slide projection and video highlight botanical nationalism and other legacies of colonialism, plant migration and invasion, biopiracy, flower diplomacy during apartheid, the garden planted by Mandela and his fellow inmates on Robben Island prison, as well as the role of classification and naming of plants.

Watch the trailers of the „Theatrum Botanicum“ trilogy below:

1. Imbizo Ka Mafavuke (Mafavuke‘s Tribunal), 2017 – screened on Sep 15 as part of the Short Film Program, starting 8.00 pm GMT 

2. Muthi, 2016-2018 – screened on Sep 15 as part of the Short Film Program, starting 8.00 pm GMT, as well as on Sep 14, 12.30 pm GMT 

3. The crown against Mafavuke, 2016 –  screened on Sep 15 as part of the Short Film Program, starting 8.00 pm GMT 

© Uriel Orlow / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2022