Adrien Missika, Weed Care (drain), 2018-2024

In the Cura Series, Missika performs acts of care that highlight vegetation often overlooked in urban environments. In the photographic series, one can see the artist offering a spa treatment to the plants that fill in the lost spaces of the urban fabric. Sad, thirsty, depressed, and dirty, those plants might feel estranged and neglected from life. By walking next to the highways in the city surrounded by gigantic architecture, or in the cracks of concrete surfaces of the most hidden corners, Missika cleanses, waters and feeds the plants to support them. In doing so, he draws attention to the subtleties of wilderness living in the urban environment and encourages actions of conviviality.

In the first action, performed in the summer of 2018, after weeks of extreme heat in Berlin, Adrien Missika decided to water all the thirsty weeds on his street in Berlin. The artist takes care of the pioneer plants that people systematically disregard. By taking care of them, he extends the notion of belonging to the public space, questioning who owns the urban space and how people use it.

In other action, he cleanses the plants with a cloth and a sprinkler. Performed with a romantic approach, and thus gaining a poetic value, Cura is the gesture of caring that denies anthropocentric beliefs. Unlike the additive nature of painting techniques, the action of cleaning reverses the process by applying color when removing a layer of dust.

Artworks

Adrien Missika

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