

Adrien Missika
This series of anthropomorphic plants subverts the cultural hegemony of the human gaze. Is it only when natural patterns rehearse human conditions that one can relate to them? In this series, the artist encounters creatures that ‘speak to us’ in a non-verbal expression, plants whose shape is so striking that one cannot help but surrender to them and listen.
However, they are plants, and this automatically dissolves human attributes, and, as such, gender qualities. Where one might see Diana as a woman sitting on a curb, others might perceive a man with wild hair. The poly-gendered carrots, unwilling to die alone, unite beyond binary identities. In this game of projection, it is the viewer who imprints their reading. Thus, the dialogue becomes active; the plants question our subjective gaze, yet they remain independent from our (mis)conceptions.