In Cities: Palermo - Radical Gardening

RADICAL GARDENING TU

Delft

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Complex

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Palermo

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Manifesta

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RADICAL GARDENING TU Delft • Complex Projects • MSc2 Palermo Studio • 2018

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Cover: underlying family roots of the Citrus Lemon

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Conceived as a series of open-ended explorations and engaged with the framework of Manifesta 12 Palermo, the Palermo studio proposes an exploration of some of the most relevant ‘gardens’ of the city.

As both heroes and victims of Palermo’s complex history, ‘gardens’ can be seen as the stage of the city’s political and physical transformations, as well as a testing ground for experimental urban practices. Gardens act as living laboratories where nature and culture collaborate, where different communities participate in forms of politics based on encounter. They allow for crosspollination and ‘impurity’; they are arenas where humans and ecosystems have negotiated coexistence with the unfamiliar and the toxic. Gardens are also contested sites of territorial exploitation and control; they witness and register the conflicts and transformations of their time.

Embarking on a journey across Palermo, the studio crossed boundaries to look for public or secret, historical or recent, preserved or abandoned, ‘pure’ or ‘toxic’, productive or ornamental, scientific or informal ‘gardens’ in and around the city, seeking possible narrations and future scenarios.

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www.radicalgardeningtudelft.com instagram: cp_palermo TU Delft / Complex Projects / MSc2 Palermo Studio Chair professor: Kees Kaan Studio leaders: Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli, Paul Cournet, Giulio Margheri Teaching assistants: Mariapaola Michelotto, Fay Zafiropoulou Chair coordinator: Manuela Triggianese Students: Andreea Visan, Danny Arakji, Efrain Fajardo Ibarra, Fay Zafiropoulou, Fiona Thompson, Haozhuo Li, Harrison Lang, Hugo Bolsius, Jiao Chen, Jie Kai Woo, Jip Colenbrander, Lydia Polykandrioti, Maarten Limburg, Nadine Tietje, Nino Schoonen, Pavel Gorokhovskyi, Rebecca Lopes Cardozo, Sanne Beckers, Sara Perera-Hammond, Setareh Noorani, Venla Keskinen, Tymon Hogenelst With the support of: Royal Dutch Embassy in Rome, Complex Projects TU Delft Printed by: printerpro.nl 5

GARDEN OF SECLUSION

DISPLACED GARDEN

TOXIC GARDEN

BOTANIC GARDEN ARISTOCRATIC GARDEN

POLITICS OF WATER

Palermo, 6 gardens.

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PALERMO is a node in an expanded geography of movements – of people, capital, goods, data, seeds, germs – that are

often invisible, untouchable and beyond collective control. Situated right at the center of the Mediterranean, on the southern edge of the European Union, in touching distance of Africa and accessible from Asia, the city has experienced continuous migrations over thousands of years – from the ancient Greeks, the Arabs and the Normans, to the most recent waves from Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

Its territory is shaped by these flows and the ensuing journeys, networks and encounters, from Sub-Saharan Africa to Scandinavia; from South East Asia to Gibraltar and the Americas, rendering the city as a living laboratory for diversity. Its material archaeology, cultural legacy, somatic traits and ecosystems are the tangible evidence of a long-lasting syncretism between different cultures across the Mediterranean and beyond.

In 1999, the French gardener, botanist, entomologist and author Gilles Clement described the world as a “planetary garden”: an enclosed ecosystem on a circumscribed plot – with humanity at large charged with the responsibility of being its gardener.

In the 21st century vision, this metaphor of the garden gains fresh importance, not as a space for humans to try to take control, but rather as specific sites where “gardeners” recognize the agency of non-human actors, and respond to climate, time, or an array of social factors, in a shared endeavour of caring.

Today, the garden can be seen as a source for new models of tending the commons. Somewhere between grassroots and masterplans, gardens are living laboratories for syncretism where nature and culture collaborate, where different communities participate in forms of politics based on encounter, rather than exclusion and dispute. Gardens allow for crosspollination and ‘impurity’; they are arenas where humans and ecosystems have negotiated coexistence with the unfamiliar and the toxic.

Where the “we” has been challenged in the encounter with the “others.”

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0. WUNDERKAMMER

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1. BOTANIC GARDEN

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2.TOXIC GARDEN

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3.DISPLACED AGRICULTURE

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4. ARISTOCRATIC GARDEN

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5. GARDEN OF SECLUSION

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6.POLITICS OF WATER

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7. INTERVIEWS

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0. WUNDERKAMMER

Chiesa San Antonio, Palermo, Italy 38°06’34.0”N / 13°21’52.1”E Jie Kai Woo, Venla Keskinen

Contemporary interpretation of the Wunderkammer by Ole Worm (1654), the Cabinet of Curiosity is a room of wondrous things both natural and artificial, a chamber of objects noteworthy for their beauty or rarity, or their artistic, scholarly, or monetary value. Our collectors explored the six gardens of Palermo and displayed their findings and aspirations through the cabinet.

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“Musei Wormiani Historia” Wunderkammer by Ole Worm (1654) 13

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TU Delft Complex Projects

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The Cabinet of Curiosity is a room of wondrous things both natural and artificial, a chamber of objects noteworthy for their beauty or rarity, or their artistic, scholarly, or monetary value. Our collectors explore the six gardens of Palermo and display their findings and aspirations through our cabinet.

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digital garden www.radicalgardeningtudelft.com cp_palermo

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Topic Garden of Aristocrates Collectors Andreea Višan, Pavel Gorokhovskyi

Mare dolce: Laghi Percolato

Topic Politics of Water Collectors Haozhuo Li, Jiao Chen

The inspiration sources are divided into multiple layers, defined by physical characteristics on the one hand and symbolism on the other.

Collection of traditional irrigation objects with nomenclature

1.1 The Cabinet of Curiosities

Diorama

E1.1 Herbarium

Topic Toxicity Collectors Danny Arakji, Nadine Tietje, Maarten Limburg

E5.1 The Seeds of the Forbidden plants are still very accessible. Miraculously, you can order them online and easily ship them to Europe. The seeds exhibited contain the seeds of a few species that have been banned from the EU since 2016.

Map

Suit A safety suit must be worn at all times upon entering the site. It limits man’s actions, forbids him to touch or dis-

E5.2

This map will guide the curious tourist of 2020 through an eco-toxic spring experience at a site.

D5.1 The Forbidden Collection

Soil Book ‘Theatrum Toxicum’ Book ‘Toxic Garden’

The theatrum toxicum is an anticipation of a future scene, depicting a vision where the roles of human and nature have changed. The human, having been the main actor for too long, must leave. Disconnected from nature, he will no longer be able to enter, has become the spectator, while nature continues to adapt, expand and heal itself...

E Theatrum Toxicum

This ‘toxic’ site presented us with an unexpected paradox: a thriving nature of vibrating colours.The translation of toxicity into colours, is represented the pigments of those elements accumulated by the plants on site.

E3.1 Colours

Adoption that takes place in the scale of a cell: Humans as well as plants must modify their molecular structure to adapt to new environments. Toxicity may cause extermination, it also allows evolution.

E2.1 Cells

These plants was collected along the south coast, representing a number of ‘tolerant’ and ‘accumulating’ plants.

They can grow on contaminated soil where other plants would die, and thereby occupy an ecological niche.

These three traditional products, a bottle and two jars, are global exports of Sicilian identity. They are branded with hidden aspects of the production process.

C5.2 The Global Garden Menu The Global Garden menu shows the process of the lemon, from seed to plate, that has been adapted by global influences.

The diorama of Frederik Ruysch (16381731), a Dutch anatomist and a pioneer in techniques of preserving organs and tissue, displays his research, expertise and aspiration.

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The cabinet of curiosity, first appeared in the homes of royalty and aristocrats in 16th century Europe to display rarities and oddities.

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C5.1 Global Products

Since 2016 the EU has banned 23 Invasive Alien Plant Species of Union concern. The Forbidden Urpflanze represents a combination of these species.

The concept of the Urpflanze was developed by Goethe in his book the Metamorphosis of Plants. Here, in 1887 Goethe visited Italy and the Orto Botanico di Palermo in search for his Urpflanze (the Primal Plant).

D The Forbidden Urpflanze

The elevated walkway suggests the path of Goethe through the Botanical Garden in search of his Urpflanze and projects a planting scheme of the Forbidden Garden which includes all the 23 forbidden Alien Invasive Plant Species in Europe.

D3.1 The Forbidden Collection

Video accompanying the original installation ‘A Listening Ear’, interviewing the citizens, asking them crucial questions about their experience in a foreign environment. Still from the interview with Mr. Umathunga.

D2.1 Still from ‘A Listening Ear’

Map of the Linnaean neighborhood depicting the countries of origin. Below a register of surname, block number, and house number.

Topic Displaying Nature Curators Jiekai Woo, Venla Keskinen

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A5.1 Follie in Villa Tasca The following installation is correlated to the idea of exploration, of discovering new angles and ways of understanding nature.

Topic Botanical Garden Collectors Rebecca Cardozo Lopez, Setareh Noorani Tymon Hogenelst

D1.1 Map of Citizen Origin

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D4.1 The Encyclopedia of Forbidden Plants in Europe D4.2 The EU document D4.3 The booklet ‘The Forbidden Urpflanze’ D4.4 The booklet ‘A Diary of Interviews’ by Setareh Noorani

Behind the Scenes Poster 1 Behind the Scenes Booklet Behind the Scenes Poster 2 The Global Garden Booklet A crate of harvested fruits display the global reception of the Sicilian agricultural sector.

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Booklet of Gardens of Hydro-holism Sicily in the Tabula Rogeriana and Map of Maredolce in 1767. The islet of Maredolce - La Favara has the same shape of the Sicily island in the old map.

B4.2 Postercards

A4.1 Production in Villa Tasca

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A garden of hydro-holism is a radical garden. It is a garden of a complex ecosystem, which is mysterious, infinite for discourse, difficult to model after and exceeds anthropocentric context. Last but not least, it erases the inscription of time.

Lucio Tasca created the Irregular Garden and the Romantic Garden. His aim was to confuse the visitor, create fake perspectives, confuse the visitor and put him in a creative mood.

Sicily’s agricultural economy depicts a Global Garden. Its position as an epicentre in migratory flows results in an accumulation of global influences. This is represented as an archipelago of fragmented landscapes.

A network shows the connection between various parts of the process, revealing the integral parts of the infrastructure and evolved landscape.

B Garden of Gydro-holism C The Global Garden

C3.1 Harvest A crate of harvested fruits display the global reception of the Sicilian agricultural sector.

The collection of lemons demonstrates the diversity which occurs in types of the same species as a result of local environment.

C2.2 Citrus Family

This migration documents the arrival of the lemon in Sicily, from across globe.

C2.1 Origins

The re-branded advertisement demonstrates the co-existence of diverse range of global identities in the production process.

C1.2 Cultivating Diversity

The Sicilian lemon represents the contemporary Sicilian cultural identity with a range of diverse global aspects.

The future Garden of Aristocracy will become once again a place of creation. The garden is to be conferred a new layer of follies, an instrument which is meant to enhance the sensorial experience of nature.

Instructions of “Unveiling the time capsule”

Topic Displaced Gardens Collectors Fiona Thompson, Harrison Lang, Jip Colenbrander, Sara Perera-Hammond

C1.1 Roots of a Sicilian Identity

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A Garden of Creation

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A3.1 Layers of inspiration

Unveiling the time capsule

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Six layers of mapping showing different traces of water-related emblems in today’s Palermo.

Lucio Tasca created the Irregular Garden and the Romantic Garden. His aim was to confuse the visitor, create fake perspectives, confuse the visitor and put him in a creative mood.

Gardens of a Thirsty Island

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Through history water has been of great importance for the land of Palermo. The ‘Gardens of a Thirsty’ Island unveil the history of the Palermo plain; supported by an imposing irrigation system, introduced by the Arabs.

A2.1 Transformation of Villa Tasca

A low engineering waste management system, a metaphor of the industrial zone of Brancaccio. An out of the box solutions from materials, cultural mores, and procedures that already exist in Palermo.

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In the 1960’s the city experienced a housing deficit. The villas were woven into the urban context of the area. And eventually parts of the gardens were offered to create space for housing.

A1.1 Map of Aristocratic Villas, Palermo

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The Layers of Seclusion

Topic Gardens of Seclusion Collectors Hugo Bolsius, Nino Schoonen

The Social dimension of ZEN

The Paleontological Tree of the Seclusive Events

Tools of Seclusion Artist: Lydia Polykandrioti “Boundaries in all their manifestations– wall, façade, gate, fence– appear as a discrete separation between here and there, in and out”. “Such things are the true postmodern boundary, both controlling and commodifying the urban domain. The boundary emerges as not a plane but a zone, not physical but socio-spatial, not a division of things but a negotiation of flows. The boundary is a thick edge. So is architecture” (Iain Borden and Jane Rendel, 2001)

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F4.1 Booklet 1 The research and thought process underlying The Secluded Garden.

Trash can be collected and turned into something valuable. Former trash dumps can be transformed into communal gardens, where more valuables can be grown.These valuables can be sold at a distinctive market that represents the neighbourhood. This market can attract people to the ZEN which are not familiar with the neighbourhood.

F A future vision of ZEN

A chain reaction between historical events that caused seclusion through time.

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ZEN which are not familiar with the neighbourhood. This together with a new neighbourhood representative, that can establish a new bond between the municipality and the inhabitants, could change

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A sample of soil taken from the Secluded Garden, Zen

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1. BOTANIC GARDEN

38°06’46.5”N / 13°22’23.3”E

Rebecca Lopes Cardozo, Setareh Noorani, Tymon Hogenelst

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INTRODUCTION THE FORBIDDEN URPFLANZE

After centuries of evolution and cross pollination, we see a new rather radical evolution within the world of plants, which is making its way through Europe. During our research on the botanical garden in Palermo we encountered the Invasive Alien Species of Union concern, founded and formulated in 2016 by the European Commission. This document describes specific plant and animal species which have been banned from the European Union (EU). This includes the restriction on keeping, importing, selling and growing particular plant species. Although this new law has been implemented a few years ago, astonishingly enough, one would find a variety of these plant along the road or in parks. In our eyes growing wild and freely with a certain innocence allure, but in the eyes of the EU perceived as invasive. The EU is trying to take control but one could question whether we as people should be interfering with an ecosystem which can perfectly function on its own. Why should we set rules and regulations for plants and seeds if we want to cultivate coexistence?

Throughout this process, we would like to thank the following people who have helped and guided us. First of all, our tutors from OMA; Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli, Paul Cournet and Giulio Margheri. Second of all, the people we interviewed during our trip to Palermo; Cassandra Funsten, Leone Contini and Alberto Baraya. And last, IPSKAMP Printing, PrinterPro and Vromans Design.

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The Forbidden Urpflanze

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A Diary of Interviews

Nationalities of the plants located in the Linnaean section, Orto Botanico Palermo 2

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Quartino 1A Pino Canario 榧 (Kaya) Pinheiro Da Terra クサマキ (Kusamaki) Desert Fan Palm 竹 (Zhu) Igqwanxe Senjed Norge Gran Mannai Hamu Eastern Gamagrass 暴马丁香 (Bao Ma Ding Xiang) 山指甲 (Shan Zhi Jia) 桂花 (Gui Hua) 小叶女贞 (Xiao Ye Nu Zhen) ネズミモチ (Nezumimochi) 雪柳 (Xue Liu) Lenchrus Sereh

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荻 (Di) Narkhat Higuillo De Hoja Menuda Jaborandi-Manso Parí Paroba Ungqeba Khas 牛奶子 (Niu Nai Zi) Holly ススキ (Susuki) Carrizo Cortadera 木半夏 (Mu Ban Xia) Chichicuáhuitl 引种苗圃 (Yin Zhong Miao Pu) 大叶胡颓子 (Da Ye Hu Tui Zi) Silky Oak 粉团 (Fen Tuan) 金花忍冬 (Jin Hua Ren Dong) Тартановая Жимолость 长白忍冬 (Chang Bai Ren Dong)

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オオチョウジガマズミ (Oochoujigamazumi) 郁香忍冬 (Yu Xiang Ren Dong) 牛奶子 (Niu Nai Zi) Guayabi Huo’ótobo Mandimbo Barilla De India Anfar Guevin Sand Coprosma Pavettai Goda Hobble-Bush Ubovu 厚壳树 (Hou Ke Shu) Watakeli Chak-Nich’maax Ombú Αλεξανδρινή Δάφνη 海桐 (Hai Tong)

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Umvusamvu Āhuēhuētl 滇刺棗 (Dian Ci Zao) Qat Quartino 2A Umsinsana Fonoll Marí Bounafa Drago De Canarias Mano De Oso 通脱木 (Tong Tuo Mu) Umxhalagube 柽柳 Chengliu Chitrak Морская Лаванда Saging Клекачка Перистая 复羽叶栾树 (Fu Yu Ye Luanshu) Reetha

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Jaborandi Tasabia A’e 樟叶木防己 Heng Zhou Wu Yao Ti Kauka Palmella Igitongati Inhlaba Ambar-Baris Ban Chutro 华南十大功劳 Huanan Shi Da Gonglao Pohuehue Vono Ni Vavalangi 何首乌 He Shou Wu Ban Chutro 南天竹 Nan Tian Zhu Baloot Hab-Ul-Ghar 新木姜子属 Xin Mu Jiang Zi Shu Nahosh

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茶条槭 Cha Tiao Qi Érable De Montpellier Arce Menor Тюркский Кустарниковый Клен Tilo Ombú Bagnaka Huizaa Corakapatra ‫יאופר הנבל‬ Umkokoko Albero Di Giuda Moqqan Somui Umunwe Serenoa Quartino 3A Palma Canaria Bibby Tree

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Pitanga Ñangapiré Goiabeira Mirto Goiaba Araçá-Rosa Mirto ‫رانا‬ 马醉木 Ma Zui Mu ‫خی لگ‬ 标本园 Biao Ben Yuan Kaayalakkamaram Спирея ウツギ Utsugi 长柱溲疏 Chang Zhu Sou Shu マルバウツギ Marubautsugi 石楠 Shi Nan シャリンバイ Sharinbai Kamini Celinda 紫薇 Zi Wei

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扁担杆属 Bian Dan Gan Shu Large-Leaved Lime American Beauty-Berry Aatunocci Dok Pha Nok 大叶紫珠 Dai Ye Zi Zhu Taramah Sabar Besi 紫薇 Zi Wei Hoang Bi Araticum-Mirim Coração-De-Boi Chirimuya Kacar Jacarandá Bwa Jón Littleleaf Linden Hollandse Linde Imvovo Erva De Fogo Raimu Niya

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Lantana Rastrera 龙眼 Long Yan Cay Lai Diveanta 黄荆 Huang Jing Rohitakalata Catawba Ubuhlungubemamba 梧桐 Wu Tong Northern Kurrajong Broad-Leaved Bottle Tree Sisau Alecrín Keeyamlei 槐树 Huai Shu Quartino 4A Tipa Frijolito Paineira

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Kurrajong 蘋婆 Ping Po Mubungati Choipang Guamo Mfuranje Kher Espinillo Peladera Ab-I-Turanj Krôôch Loving ル ミー Rumii ‫هرهزرخ‬ Umnduze Pomerans 成批 Chen Pi Adi Dəvədabanı Topinambour Árbol Maravilla シロヨモギ Shiroyomogi

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A Diary of Interviews

mr. zhu Where are you from?

From China.

Tell me a bit about your journey to Palermo?

About 40 years ago, I came here from SW-China. I came by airplane and was looking for work.

What kind of work do you do?

I sell small products from China. I started as a laborer on a building site when I first moved here.

How has the initial language boundary affected your stay in the Linnaean section?

At first I couldn’t communicate with any of the residents of this block, it was difficult to ask for their help or tell them how I felt.

Have you ever felt discriminated by others on basis of your name, appearance, or even heritage?

Yes, when I first came here.

If you could change something about your environment, what would it be?

I would like to have more sunshine and in general a warmer climate. Otherwise, I am doing okay.

A Diary of Interviews

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THE URPFLANZE

THE URPFLANZE

By Pierre Jean Franรงois Turpin (1837)

By Pierre Jean Franรงois Turpin (1837)

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The Forbidden Urpflanze

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The Forbidden Urpflanze

The Forbidden Urpflanze

THE URPFLANZE Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“The Urpflanze is going to be the strangest creature in the world, which Nature herself shall envy me. With this model and the key to it, it will be possible to go on forever inventing plants and know that their existence is logical; that is to say, if they do not actually exist, they could, for they are not the shadow phantoms of vain imagination, but possess an inner necessity and truth.�

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE - German writer and statesman (Italy, 17th May 1787)

Radical Botanical

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THE FORBIDDEN URPFLANZE

By Tymon Hogenelst & Rebecca Lopes Cardozo (2018)

THE FORBIDDEN URPFLANZE

By Tymon Hogenelst & Rebecca Lopes Cardozo (2018)

FORBIDDEN PLANT SPEC

Alternanthera philoxeroides (Alligator weed) Asclepias syriaca (Common milkweed) Baccharis halimifolia (Eastern baccharis) Cabomba caroliniana (Carolina fanwort) Eichhornia crassipes (Water hyacinth) Elodea nuttallii (Nuttall’s waterweed) Gunnera tinctoria (Chilean rhubarb) THE FORBIDDEN URPFLANZE

By Tymon Hogenelst & Rebecca Lopes Cardozo (2018)

Heracleum mantegazzianum (Giant hogweed) Heracleum persicum (Persian hogweed)

FORBIDDEN PLANT SPECIES

Heracleum sosnowskyi (Sonsnowsky’s hogweed)

Hydrocotyle ranunculoides (Floating pennywort) Impatiens glandulifera (Himalayan balsam) Lagarosiphon major (Curly waterweed)

HE FORBIDDEN URPFLANZE

Tymon Hogenelst & Rebecca Lopes Cardozo 018)

Alternanthera philoxeroides (Alligator weed)

Ludwigia grandiflora (Water-primrose) Asclepias syriaca (Common milkweed)

peploides (Floating Baccharis halimifolia (Eastern primrose-willow) baccharis) FORBIDDEN PLANT Ludwigia SPECIES Cabomba caroliniana (American (Carolina fanwort) Lysichiton americanus skunk cabbage) Eichhornia crassipes (Water hyacinth)

Microstegium vimineum (Japanese stiltgrass) Elodea nuttallii (Nuttall’s waterweed) Gunnera tinctoria (Chilean(Parrot’s rhubarb) feather) Myriophyllum aquaticum Heracleum mantegazzianum (Giant hogweed)

Alternanthera philoxeroides (Alligator weed) Asclepias syriaca (Common milkweed)

Baccharis halimifolia (Eastern baccharis) FORBIDDEN PLANT SPECIES Cabomba caroliniana (Carolina fanwort)

Myriophyllum heterophyllum (Broadleaf watermilfoil) Heracleum persicum (Persian hogweed)

Parthenium hysterophorus (Whitetop weed) Heracleum sosnowskyi (Sonsnowsky’s hogweed) Hydrocotyle ranunculoides (Floating pennywort) Pennisetum setaceum (Crimson fountaingrass) Impatiens glandulifera (Himalayan balsam)

Eichhornia crassipes (Water hyacinth)

Persicaria perfoliata (Asiatic tearthumb) Lagarosiphon major (Curly waterweed)

Elodea nuttallii (Nuttall’s waterweed)

PuerariaLudwigia lobatagrandiflora (Kudzu(Water-primrose) vine)

Gunnera tinctoria (Chilean rhubarb)

Ludwigia peploides (Floating primrose-willow)

Heracleum mantegazzianum (Giant hogweed)

Lysichiton americanus (American skunk cabbage)

Alternanthera philoxeroides (Alligator weed)

Heracleum persicum (Persian hogweed)

Microstegium vimineum (Japanese stiltgrass)

Asclepias syriaca (Common milkweed)

Heracleum sosnowskyi (Sonsnowsky’s hogweed)

Myriophyllum aquaticum (Parrot’s feather)

Baccharis halimifolia (Eastern baccharis)

Hydrocotyle ranunculoides (Floating pennywort)

Myriophyllum heterophyllum (Broadleaf watermilfoil)

Cabomba caroliniana (Carolina fanwort)

Impatiens glandulifera (Himalayan balsam)

Parthenium hysterophorus (Whitetop weed)

Eichhornia crassipes (Water hyacinth) 90 nuttallii (Nuttall’s waterweed) Elodea

Lagarosiphon major (Curly waterweed) Ludwigia grandiflora (Water-primrose)

Pennisetum setaceum (Crimson fountaingrass) The Forbidden Persicaria perfoliata (Asiatic tearthumb)Urpflanze

Gunnera tinctoria (Chilean rhubarb)

Ludwigia peploides (Floating primrose-willow)

Pueraria lobata (Kudzu vine)

Heracleum mantegazzianum (Giant hogweed)

Lysichiton americanus (American skunk cabbage)

Heracleum persicum (Persian hogweed)

Microstegium vimineum (Japanese stiltgrass)

34 Heracleum sosnowskyi (Sonsnowsky’s hogweed) Urpflanze Myriophyllum aquaticum (Parrot’s feather) The Forbidden The Forbidden Urpflanze Hydrocotyle ranunculoides (Floating pennywort)

Myriophyllum heterophyllum (Broadleaf watermilfoil)

INVASIVE ALIEN SPECIES OF UNION CONCERN By the European Commission (2016)

“Invasive Alien Species (IAS) are animals and plants that are introduced accidentally or deliberately into a natural environment where they are not normally found, with serious negative consequences for their new environment. They represent a major threat to native plants and animals in Europe, causing damage worht billions of euros to the European economy every year.

As invasive alien species do not respect borders, coordinated action at the European level will be more effective than individual actions as the Member State level.�

EUROPEAN COMMISSION - Invasive Alien Species of Union concern (2016)

The Forbidden Urpflanze

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ARTIFICIAL PLANTS Alberto Baraya

Artist Via Teatro Garibaldi, 46-56, 90133 Palermo PA, Italy 38° 6’52.5”N / 13°22’7.1”E

T: Our university is collaborating with Manifesta because OMA is part of the curatorial team and they are hosting students from all over Europa. Our studio is called radical gardening and it is a researched based studio. Which concludes in an architectural let’s say artist kind of result. So, we are allowed to do anything from making an installation or making a book.

R: We are free what kind object we’re going to make. And how our research will be presented basically.

A: That is great.

R: So, we are with seven groups and every group has their own theme and our theme is the botanical garden in Palermo. Have you been?

A: Yes, haha.

T: It is a beautiful place, right?

A: It is an incredible place, it is amazing. You know all this eh, it is a symbol of the importance of the relevance of the botanical studies in a place. This theater they have in center of the space and all these greenhouses wonderful ones. It is a good symbol of how was the relationship with the city and the tropical world.

T: I think it is a really interesting topic to look in to.

R: So, basically what we are trying to look for is the contemporary definition of a botanical garden.

A: I see from the point of view of the people who are managing the whole line on Manifesta is that Planetary garden is a good metaphor on understanding on how can people manage this ideas on contemporary behaviours.

Okay you can grow your own and that’s it. But for me the botanical garden has a kind of, is like an archive, it’s collection and it is a symbol of those collection from the travellers and this … attitude on certain cities on conquering the world. And it is a symbol of those treasures, life treasures. In that point, it is the most interesting thing in a botanical garden. This very scientific clue on how to manage a world. Not only scientific in the terms of biology, but in the terms of ethnography and anthropology that is probably the most interesting things in this contemporary think.

T: We also looked into your work and especially the Herbarium of artificial plants. And I think if i understood it correctly you are questionings the empirical objectivity of a botanical naturalist in this project and we were also doing our research looking into: is a garden not always artificial and is a garden a product of politic and

The Forbidden Urpflanze

economic interest? So, we’re looking into the objectivity or maybe the ‘not objectivity’ of the garden.

A: Yeah, that is one of the clues on how to understand this relation with the scientific whole. Probably the first step as an art practise, I want, I have relevant in my own practise this idea of… Okay the world is there, scientific says that about the world. I want to say something in the same levels about the world, in levels of significance, in levels on knowledge, different knowledge. But art practice is a kind of way of understanding the world and the art practice is to have the right to speak about the world. Not just only as an illustrative role in the scientific point of view. That is because maybe this herbarium of artificial plants is a kind of bad about that.

T: So, maybe what would be for you this definition of this objective garden.

A: I think, yes, science pretend to be the way of saying the truth about the world. But that is certainly not the truth. There is a lot of cultural circumstances from that.

“... a garden is a fake nature.

It is a controlled nature and even the botanical garden is not natural being there. Yes, there is but there is not. You have collections of parts of the world, this metaphor like about the botanical garden is that representation of the world” ... you have a small part of America of North America, of the south islands and northern part and so on and this like a small museum and this is this symbol of you can manage the world. And manage is like a desire and the symbol of that desire is the botanical garden.

T: That is really interesting.

A: I have no scientific knowledge more than you have in the school, or with the site to study, but all the students in elementary school are potential biologist, potential 37

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2. TOXIC GARDEN 38°05’49.0”N / 13°25’49.5”E

Danny Arakji, Maarten Limburg, Nadine Tietje

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PROLOGUE What is toxicity?

toxic [adjective]

Latin remedium meaning ‘restoring balance’.

In recent years, we have increasingly taken advantage of this quirk of nature, and the term hyperaccumulator has become common vocabulary in the field of eco-conservation.

Today, over 400 plants are known to absorb – or better yet, hyperaccumulate – toxins. Some do so in order to make themselves poisonous to not be eaten by other species, others just by chance. It does not come as a surprise that humans are now utilising this knowledge, trying to speed up the process of remediation where previous generations have contaminated the media of nature.

LATIN toxicum - poison.

GREEK toxikon - (poison for) arrows, and toxon - bow.

The term generally describes a substance’s ‘quality of being toxic or poisonous’ to an organism or, if present in a greater scale, to a whole environment. These substance are elements, most of all metals or petrochemicals. Yet toxicity is evidently relative to whom or what it is effecting. A famous old saying notes: ‘The dose makes the poison’.

Thus, it is possible to die from drinking too much water, yet lives have been saved by small doses of arsenic.

The role of nature and humans and their interrelationship guides our approach towards toxicity. In order to explore and examine the movements and processes related to toxicity on the south coast of Palermo, we will look at the topic with a twofold view. What humans consider toxic some animals and plants not necessarily do. They have might even modified their molecular structure in order to adapt to new environments.

It is evident that, in the aftermath of industrialisation, concentrations of toxins in the natural environment have increased in countless places around the world to an extent that all living organisms have to deal with this consequence in one way or another.

Toxicity allows evolution and extermination if we reflect on how life on earth began; how it ended for some species and how it became ready for humans to colonize it. Can toxicity of the environment allow biodiversity in the long run?

What is toxicity? Toxicity of the human mind, health, soul and or environment?

What if we acknowledge the present situation without trying to repair it through heavy interventions but let nature heal itself?

Phytoremediation for instance describes the process and ability of plant species to reverse contamination of soil, water and air. The term stems from Greek phyto meaning ‘plant’ and 40

100g OF ASPRIN? Toxicity of the eye.

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1800 Franz ludwig, Spaziergang Castel Spaziergang in Palermo 1800 | Franz Ludwig - Catel in Palermo

1910 - Unknown - Foro Italico

1829 | Francesco Zerilli - Borgo1910 Santa Lucia Foro Italico 1910 - Unknown - Foro Italico 1874 | Sanford Robinson Gifford - Oreto River

16 Toxic Garden

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1850 | Franz Richard Unterberger 1874 | Sanford Robinson Gifford - Oreto River Foro Italico 1969 | Unknow 1969 - Foro Italico Toxic Garden

1987

Map showing the dump area and new land that was formed during the WWII and the Sacco di Palermo.

Toxic Garden

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Southern coast, a short film by Maarten Limburg, 5,22min 52 https://vimeo.com/user78689901 44

Toxic Garden

Toxic Garden

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THEATRES THEATRES

theatre theatre[noun] [noun] LATIN theatrum - play-house, stage, spectators in in a theatre.

LATIN theatrum - play-house, stage, spectators a theatre. theatron - place forfor viewing.

GREEK theatron - place viewing.

GREEK

The term theatre commonly The term theatre commonlydescribes describesa a scenic representation scenic representationofofevents eventsasasartistic artistic communication between communication betweenactors actorsand andanan audience.

AA theater may audience. theater mayrefer refertotoa abuilding building in in which theater is is played, which theater played,the theprocess processofof theatre-playing, oror generally theatre-playing, generallya agroup groupofofpeople people who make theatre.

It Itis isoften who make theatre. oftenisisa acollaborative collaborative form fine usinglive liveperformers, performers,actors actors form ofof fine artart using actresses, presentthe theexperience experienceofofaa oror actresses, toto present real imagined eventbefore beforea alive liveaudience, audience, real oror imagined event typically a stage.

Theperformers performersmay may typically onon a stage.

The communicate this experiencetotothe theaudience audience communicate this experience through combinationsofofgesture, gesture,speech, speech, through combinations song, music, and dance.Elements Elementsofofart, art,such such song, music, and dance. painted scenery andstagecraft stagecraftsuch suchasas asas painted scenery and lighting are used enhancethe thephysicality, physicality, lighting are used toto enhance presence and immediacyofofthe theexperience. experience. presence and immediacy

The Thesouth southcoast, coast,this thisnew newterritory territory could could have have become becomeaaglamorous glamorousstage stageof of new new times. times. But But instead insteadititstill stillpresents presentsaasad sad act. act. The The final final theatre, theatre,the theamphitheatre amphitheatrethat that has has been been built built in in aaformer formerlandfill landfilland anddischarge discharge area area in in Acqua Acqua dei deiCorsari, Corsari,most mostof ofall alldisplays displays man’s man’s past past actions. actions.But Butthe theactor actorhas haschanged, changed, today today itit is is nature. nature.

The world a theatreand andsosoisisPalermo Palermo- The world is is a theatre literally and metaphorically.From Fromit’s it’sfirst first literally and metaphorically. moment until now, thecity cityhas hasstage stagetotoSicilian Sicilian moment until now, the history, to Italian history, European history and history, to Italian history, European history and global history.

The cityininitself itselfisisananactor actorinin global history.

The city a larger play.

This notioncan canbebetranslated translated a larger play.

This notion in many ways: The streets are the stagetoto in many ways: The streets are the stage Palermo’s citizen, watchedbybythe thebuildings buildings Palermo’s citizen, watched embodying such long history, and thestruggle struggle embodying such long history, and the of past and present times.

Places all across of past and present times. Places all across Palermo, occupied or abandoned, are theatres Palermo, occupied or abandoned, are theatres to everyday life. to everyday life.

PALERMO PALERMO

The city is an actor watched by the The city is an actor watched by the mountains and the sea. mountains and the sea.

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‘A terrifying revelation: the earth, understood as a territory reserved for life, is a closed space, limited by the limits of living systems...

It is a garden’.

GILLES CLEMÉNT - The Planetary Garden, 2015.

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HYPERACCUMULATORS Hyperacculators and AND TOLERANT PLANTS

tolerant plants

Some plants are capable of growing in soils with very high concentrations of metals that actively and selectively absorb these metals through their roots, and concentrate extremely high levels of metals in their tissues, either in order to safeguard themselves or as a quirk of nature.

The term hyperaccumulator was coined by New Zealand researcher R. R. Brooks in the 1970’s. Today, over 400 plant species are known for their enhanced metal uptake, some to make themselves poisonous in order to not get eaten by predators, others just as a quirk of nature.

The questions ‘how’ and even more so ‘why’ do plants do that has occupied numerous researchers around the globe. This is not least due to the fact that phytoremediation presents a promising tool to address post-industrial, contaminated sites all as being evident all over the world. Recent papers draw upon two hypotheses: Essentially, both are based upon the assumption that plants utilise their ability to take up toxins to safeguard themselves from predetors and pathogenes either by the accumulated substances alone (Elemental Defence theory) or in combination the plant’s own chemicals (Joint Effect theory).

Many plants that are no hyperaccumulators bear an unusual tolerance towards soil contamination. These plants are called facultative metallophytes. Indeed, some are even confined to the presence of heavy metals in the soil, making them obligate metallophytes. In the course of their nutrient uptake, they accumulate minor doses of toxic heavy metals. Although the uptake is not to

their advantage, neither is it to their harm.

The vast meadows of Acqua dei Corsari are home to millions of plants some of which were identified, collected and dried during our research. From the many, mostly wild species found on site all are tolerent says Bob Ursem from the TU Delft Botanic Garden..

‘Most of the plants are tolerant ... [and] the ones which are not tolerent won’t grow there. Nature selects the plants itself.

These plants are called opportunistic plants. They are the first invadors, the first ones to settle and when the development evolves they vanish away. So its a question of succession and stages...’

A selection of plants with increased abilities for heavy metal take is presented in the following.

Two of these, Ricinus communis (4) and Hyoscyamus niger (6) are hyperaccumulators.

METAL UPTAKE

Selection of plants found on site and their metal uptake.

1 Malva sylvestris 2 Hedysarum coronarium 3 Papaver rhoeas 4 Ricinus communis 5 Brassicaceae nigra 6 Hyoscyamus niger 7 Lagurus ovatus

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THEATRUM

TOXICUM

e c o toxic

ECOLOGIES

HISTORY

This thriving lands are home to hundreds of species - birds, reptiles, insects and mamals. They are the gardener in these lands that man neglected for so long. They help nature expand and take over and cover the humans traces.

Soil tells stories - we find recent. The coastal path history, challenges and c century.

spring experience

1.4.-30.5.2020 The city of Palermo and it‘s region are full of hidden pleasures. The new ecotourism opens up yet unknown gems of nature, history and culture to the curious tourist.

THEATRUM TOXICUM is the first of a series of ecological parks and preserves around Palermo that will enrich and embrace it‘s culture and offers adventure, ecology, archaeology and Sicilian culture in one package. Temptingly beautiful, a natural sanctuary developed on these toxic land. It is a notion of the bitter sweet - humans have, through their actions, caused much harm. But nature adapts, heals itself, if we let it, and presents us with an alien place ouside the rush of the city, to enjoy and contemplate.

This thriving lands are home to hundreds of species - birds, reptiles, insects and mamals. They are the gardener in these lands that man neglected for so long. They help nature expand and take over and cover the humans traces. Identify over 100 tolerant plant species with our scanner and learn more about their names, origins and abilities in phytoremediation. You will be amazed by the vibrance nurtured by these toxic lands.

Located only 10 kilometres south of the city centre of Palermo, THEATRUM TOXICUM is conveniently connected through a new light rail line. Hop on and travel along the beautiful Sicilian coast full of attraction for the curious tourist.

Book a guided tour with one of our toxologists, biologists or anthropologists to learn more about the place, its past, present and future.

1 ENTRY ECO PARK

1818

2 ACCESS COASTAL PATH 3 VIEWING POINTS 4 TOXIMETERS 5 BEE HIVE 6 THEATRUM TOXICUM 7 ACCESS THEATRUM TOXICUM

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Coastal path

north west expansion of the historical ce

Theatre path Ecology path Palermo ligh rail

ADMISSION: FREE

1954

A SUIT MUST BE WORN AT ALL TIMES FOR NATURE PROTECTION. IT CAN BE PURCHASED AT THE KIOSK NEAR THE ENTRY OR AT PARTICIPATING PARTNERS AROUND PALERMO. THEATRUM TOXICUM RESERVES THE RIGHT TO ASK VISITORS TO LEAVE IN CASE OF NON-COMPLIANCE, OR IN CASE OF ANY RISKS TO VISTOR OR NATURE.

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For more deatiled information please visit our website or call one of our guides.

PUBLIC TRANSPORT

The new light rail line connects Palermo city centre with THEATRUM TOXICUM in only 10 min. Please visit our website for more information: palermolightrail.it

Danny Arakji +31 6 55541162

Monday - Friday weekend/public holiday

NadineTietje +49 173 8804944

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5:30 - 23:30 5:00 - 00:00

departure every 20 min departure every 10 min

beginning of the sack of palermo

PERSONS ENTERING THESE PREMISES DO SO AT THEIR OWN RISK. Visitors enter and use these premises at their own risk. Neither the owners nor their representatives or staff are liable for loss or damage to any visitor or any persons property, nor for injury or death of any visito

LIVING HERBARIUM

d traces from the past, far away and h narrates the story of Palermo, its constant transformation of the last

enter

New technologies allow our visitors to learn everything about the plants found on site - their name, origin and abilities in phytoremediation. Which toxins do they absorb, how and why?

A STAGE FOR NATURE

Watch nature thrive in this alien place far from the city‘s rush.

Our professional guides will take you on a journey through the past, present and future of Palermo, its people and its nature.

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giarrusso’s plan - via roma realization

construction of via liberta’ - palermo liberty

northern growth

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2018

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Palermo

disappearance of conca d’oro

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end of sack of palermo

or or any person whether such loss or damage to property or injury or death is as a result of the negligence of the owners and or their representatives or staff, or not. THEATRUM TOXICUM © 2018.

current condition

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3. DISPLACED AGRICULTURE 38°06’42.3”N / 13°21’39.5”E

Fiona Thompson, Harrison Lang, Jip Colenbrander, Sara Perera-Hammond

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THE GLOBAL GARDEN IMPACTS OF MIGRATION DISPLACEMENT ON SICILIAN AGRICULTURE

displaced [déplacer] verb 1.

2.

3.

take over the place, position, or role of move (something) from its proper or usual position force (someone) to leave their home, typically because of war, persecution, or natural disaster

garden [hortus] noun 1.

2.

a piece of ground adjoining a house, used for growing flowers, fruit, or vegetables a large public hall

global crops. The media highlights various stories of poor conditions and exploitation taking place in this process.

Further along the production chain, it is possible to see a new community working together at distribution level, shown in the diversity of the market cultures in Palermo.

The word displaced takes on many forms. It’s traditional meanings - to force out another and replace it, or something moving from its usual position - both involve an element of migration or movement.

These definitions can be translated to Sicily’s agricultural economy which demonstrates it’s position as an epicentre in migratory flows, as it takes on an accumulation of global influences. Throughout history, Sicily has evolved and changed with the introduction of new crops from all over the world, culminating in two thirds of its landscape becoming agrarian. This long tradition of influx into the country has not only transformed the landscape but also the infrastructure and culture.

Often, the external presentation of Sicily’s agricultural products do not highlight the complexity of the traditions and process behind them which has evolved with global influences. This research aims to follow the story of the Sicilian Lemon an emblem of the countries tradition and culture through the production process, from seed to plate, in order to showcase the underlying global aspects. The aim is to challenge the perception of traditional identity of these products, by creating a contemporary interpretation of branding in order to highlight these often hidden aspects and address the new cultivation of co-existence taking place on the Island.

Today, Sicily is at the forefront of current migration issues, as we see the highest level of displacement worldwide on record. As a result, many migrants find work in the agricultural sector, contributing to the cultivation of these

(Left) Underlying family roots of the Citrus Lemon DISPLACED GARDENS

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Sicily’s past global garden

NORMANS

p

jerusalum artichoke

Jerusalem artichoke

THE NEW WORLD

AGHLABID DYNASTY

chayote

MEXICO

lemons

cotton

sugarcane

oranges

tomatoes

BRAZIL

Global origins of the agricultural crops grown in Sicily.

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DISPLACED GARDENS

ORIGINS The origins of agriculture grown in Sicily

peaches

onions

snake melons

leeks

pears

apples

apricot

barley

cabbage

chickpeas

wheat

quince

figs

rice

pumpkins

Y

durum wheat

olives

GREECE

TURKEY

basil

CHINA

black eyed peas

CENTRAL AFRICA

DISPLACED GARDENS

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BEHIND THE SCENES Ballaro market

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Jip Colenbrander

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MARKETS AND DISTRIBUTION

3 local markets, 3 identities A visit to the local markets, Mercato Ballarò, Mercato del Capo and Mercato Vucciria

“Three markets have different sorts of migration- Ballarò - an African community, del Capo - Asian and Vucciria - Chinese” GIORGIO SCIABICA - anthropologist

DISPLACED GARDENS

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What is your name?

David Where are you from?

I’m from Ghana How long have you lived here?

A long time, almost 18 years. Since was small and now I work here.

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What is your name?

Salvatore Where are you from?

Palermo, Sicily How long have you been working here?

Yes, a long time. Twenty years working here in the market.

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What is your name?

I am Giuseppe What is the name of this fruit?

Nespola in Italian, a typical fruit of Sicily Is it local?

Yes it local from Villgratzia, near Palermo

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Where do you sell your products?

To the markets in Palermo

What is your name?

Jonah When did you come Sicily?

10 years ago when I started working here.

Where does your produce come from?

All around Sicily. The Tomatoes are from Catania. The Lemons are from Palermo.

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Where do you sell your produce?

We sell to Ballarò Market, to Vucheria Market and Porta Carini Market. We sell to the shops around too.

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4. ARISTOCRATIC GARDEN 38°05’55.9”N / 13°19’41.6”E

Andreea Visan, Pavel Gorokhovskyi, Sanne Beckers

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VILLAS OF PALERMO (1912)

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VILLAS OF PALERMO (1912)

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VILLAS OF PALERMO (1987)

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VILLAS OF PALERMO (1987)

1787

Palermo, Saturday, April 7, 1787. “In the public gardens, which are close to the roadstead, I have passed some most delightful hours. It is the most wonderful place in the world. Regularly laid out by art, it still looks a fairy spot; planted but a short time ago, it yet transports you into ancient times. Green edgings surround beds of the choicest exotics; citron-espaliers arch over low-arboured walks; high walls of the oleander, deeked with thousands of its red carnation-like blossoms, dazzle the eye. Trees wholly strange and unknown to me, as yet without leaf, and probably, therefore, natives of a still warmer climate, spread out their strange looking branches. A raised seat at the end of the level space gives you a survey of these curiously mixed rarities, and leads the eye at last to great basins in which gold and silver fish swim about with their pretty movements; now hiding themselves beneath moss-covered reeds; now darting in troops to catch the bit of bread which has tempted them from their hiding place. All the plants exhibit tints of green which I am not uses to; yellower and bluer than are found wiht us. What however lent to every object the rarest of charms was a strong halo which hung around everything alike, and produced the following singular effect: objects which were only distant a few steps from others were distinguished from them by a decide tint of light blue, so that at lat the distinctive colours of the most remote were almost merged in it, or at least assumed to the eye a decidely strong blue tint. “ Goethe, J. W. (1885). Goethe’s Travels in Italy. (A. J. Morrison, & C. Nisbet, Trans.) US: G. Bell and sons.

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The Voyage

2017

Villa Lanza of Scalea “City House Servizi, sells in palermo in via Lanza di scalea an exclusive detached villa with 2 driveways and 2 pedestrian accesses. The villa of 270 square meters is spread over 2 levels. The first level consists of an entrance hall, 3 triple bedrooms, 1 kitchen with an adjoining porch and a very large veranda. An internal staircase leads to the second level (first floor) which consists of a lounge, 2 bedrooms, another kitchen and a large terrace. The villa has a large garage and has a plot of land of about 1300 square meters divided between a large well-kept lawn, a vegetable garden and a barbecue area.“ City House Servizi Immobiliari. (2018, January 22). Villa via Giuseppe Lanza di Scalea, Palermo. Tratto da Immobiliare: https://www.immobiliare.it/62913514-Vendita-Villa-via-Giuseppe-Lanza-di-Scalea-Palermo.html

The Voyage

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VILLA TASCA, 1 : 10 000

VILLA TASCA

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ROMANTIC PARK 1881

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PUBLIC LIBRARY today

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PRESENT - 27%

VILLA - GARDEN

PRESENT - 24%

VILLA - GARDEN

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FOUNDATION 1889

Cycas revoluta

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Foundation FirstXIXowner: Baron of Montefalco Louiso di Balogna XX XXI LandscapeFOUNDATION designer:– John Claudius Loundon REDEVELOPMENT 1905 2013 Extended – park was added Artificial lakes and fountains were added PRESENTsmall - 38% Today: offers the possibility of organizing and large events, parties, weddings

XVIII CURRENT FORM OF THE VILLA* 1700ds

FUNCTION AS A HUNTING HOUSE

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THE IRREGULAR GARDEN 1855

EXTENSION - PARK 1750ds

VILLA - GARDEN

XXI FESTIVE PLACE today

THE ROMANTIC GARDEN 1870

PRESENT - 12%

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A GARDEN OF CREATION

ENGAGING THE SENSES

As mentioned before, the garden of aristocracy is to be confered a new layer, that of the sensorial experience. Studies have shown how perception of colors, sounds or space can have an impact on the cognition. They create new neural connections in the sense that they trigger personal feelings and experiences, which might result in - artistic - production. The picture above is an abstraction of this process: parts of a plant that are perceived in different regions of the brain (visually in the primary visual cortex in the occipital lobe) trigger personal memories and feelings, and come together in the prefrontal cortex.

As a result, the new layer of the garden is meant to be an instrument to enhance the sensorial experiences. This shall be done through different installations, each with the sole purpose of amplifying an experience in the garden. One example would be separating the visual from the auditive, thus being able to focus only on the sounds of nature.

As an inspiration for this concept served the work of Francis H. Cabot, self-taught horticulturalist who deals with the emotions in the garden, psychologists Rachel and Stephen Kaplan, with their studies about the “Attention Restoration” and “The Restorative Benefits of Nature” and a couple other experts.

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“ What is special about these gardens?

Lucio Tasca created the Irregular Garden and the Romantic Garden almost at the same time. His aim was to confuse the visitor, create fake perspectives, like in Escher paintings, where you never know what is before and what is after. So he intended to confuse the visitor, to put him in a good mood, to compose art. “ Giuseppe Tasca

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FOLLIES IN THE GARDEN OF INSPIRATION

NEW LAYER

which might direct the attention towards the installation itself instead of the garden.

Therefore, all interventions are simple boxes.

As a result, follies become the newest layer added to the garden of aristocracy. However, they play a different role than they used to in the past. Instead of being an anchor point for the garden, a strong visual presence which attracts attention and helps the visitors orient themselves through the wavy paths, the follies become tools, with the sole purpose of increasing the attention towards the garden. As mentioned before, the future of creation in the garden lies in a more profound and meaningful experience in nature.

Therefore, the only purpose of the follies is to be instruments and help amplifing the sensorial reading of the garden. Also, given their objective, the follies shall not be governed by any kind of formalistic expression,

WHY BOXES

As mentioned before, the installations should have a simple geometry. The reason is not only because they are strictly functional but also based on what human beings interpret as neutral. The built environment is a conglomeration of boxes, with which human beings are accustomed to and which they don’t find out of the ordinary.

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“ Gardens are always about experiments.

They are not only about scents and colors, but also sounds – you need to have elements, that create sensual reaction, that get to you subliminally. ” Francis H. Cabot

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5. GARDEN OF SECLUSION 38°10’50.3”N / 13°19’02.0”E

Hugo Bolsius, Lydia Polykandrioti, Nino Schoonen

Secluded Gardens

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HORTUS PROPRIUS The exclusiv e ga r den

The word garden originates from the German word “garten” which designates an enclosed area, a distinctive ecosystem. When one begins researching the notion of the garden, he will come up with definitions that express a celebration of diversity, different species from all over the world co-existing in the same place. During my searching for gardens in Palermo, I decided to focus on the extreme case of an area in Palermo where diversity does not exist, but rather walled, segregated communities of the same polulation. In that kind of environment, the natural processes of osmosis and cross-pollination are impeded.

distinctive element, an enclosure. In the same way, the gated communities around it, with the private streets, can also be seen as private islands.

Islands (positive or negative) are micro-utopias that can be located in the urban fabric, constituting parallel states in a state or in other words, ecotopes.

THE ARSENAL OF SECLUSION

Iain Borden and Jane Rendel (Thick Edge: Architectural Boundaries in the Postmodern Metropolis): “Boundaries in all their manifestations– wall, façade, gate, fence– appear as a discrete separation beINSULAS tween here and there, in and out”.

“Such things are the true postmodern The concept of the “insulas”, boundary, both controllingand comthe blocks that create the ensem- modifying the urban domain [...] The bles of the ZEN neighbourhood, that boundary emerges as not a plane but were envisioned by Vittorio Gregotti a zone, not physical but socio-spatial, in 1969, is a contradictory term be- not a division of things but a negotiacause the ZEN itself is presented a tion of flows. The boundary is a thick island in relation to its envirnment. A edge. So is architecture” 8

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HORTUS PROPRIOUS | The exclusive garden

Secluded Gardens

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1970-1980

WW II

conflict with munici sack of Palermo

Municipality stops building public fac and blocks gas, water & light people squatted ZEN apartments allied bombing 1943

construction of ZEN 1

illegal in earthquake ‘68 construction of ZEN 2 arson insula 3E

Paleontological Tree of Zona Espansione Nord II

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1990-2000

1980-1990

2000-2010

2010-2018

strong media stigmatization

graffiti, gardening and cooking workshops

youth workshops youth daycare founding of youth help organisation ZEN Insieme

construction San Fillipo Neri Church

first municipal support

football field Manifesta gardens

inhabitants remain calling it ZEN

reduced bond between inhabitants and municipality

priest with strong connection with the neighborhood retired

construction municipal social services Velodromo Stadium to retrigger developments in ZEN got relocated elsewhere in the neighbourhood

Manifesta 2018

first legalized appartments

start maintenance insulae

shopping mall Conca d’Oro built to create jobs for the neighborhood

never got inaugurated

construction retirement home & center for the blind for the community

renovation insula 3E police barracks

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illegal activities more surveilance

Insula 3E

single mother counseling nursery school operations open amphitheatre against

Conca d’Oro

nobody from ZEN works at Conca d’Oro

Palermo

highway created for Velodromo secludes ZEN even more

Church

ZEN named to San Fillipo Neri

cilities

nhabitants

library

music studio

Supporting associations

ipality & inhabitants

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HORTUS PROPRIOUS | The exclusive garden

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HORTUS PROPRIOUS | The exclusive garden

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6. POLITICS OF WATER 38°04’39.5”N / 13°25’03.8”E

Jiao Chen, Efrain Fajardo Ibarra, Haozhuo Li, Fay Zafiropoulou

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DEFINITION Hydro-politics

“Crucial to Bergson was the claim that in this movement of creation, of life and growth, lies the essence of time: ‘Wherever anything lives’, he wrote, ‘there is, open somewhere, a register in which time is being inscribed’ (Bergson 1911: 17).”

(Tim Ingold)

“The systematic study of conflict and cooperation between states over water resources that transcend international borders” John Waterbury, 1979 Hydro-politics of the Nile Valley It seems that the identity shown during the ArabNorman times echoes with today’s zeitgeist in Sicily.

GOLDEN HERITAGE OF ARAB-NORMAN IRRIGATION SYSTEMS “In the ancient world, large bodies of water formed The irrigation system that sustained gardens and the natural boundaries for people and nations, but lake that acted as a propaganda tool to showcase today’s geopolitical landscape looks very different.” the power of the Kingdom are strong backups for Zenia Tata - executive director of global flourishment. We may all agree that water is an very development and international expansion at XPrize important resource, and we would like to show how this importance is addressed through the origins.

As the anthropologist Tim Ingold has said, looking When the Berber geographer drew the shape of into thesetoirrigation not to take stock of DEFINITION “Crucial Bergsonsystems was the is claim that in this Sicily as the shape of the island in Maredolce – La their contents but to follow what going on, Hydro-politics movement of creation, of life andisgrowth, lies tracing the Favara, a synecdoche and a mirror were created in the multiple trails ‘Wherever of becoming, wherever they essence of time: anything lives’, he lead. wrote, the history.

Following action, one interpret The evolution this holisticagarden then form “The systematic studythis of conflict and can cooperation ‘there is, openof somewhere, registercan in which time is the meaning of hydro-politics in an open it is an environment which today’s between states over water resources thatway: transcend being inscribed’within (Bergson 1911: 17).”creativity may not only about cooperation between states over international borders” (Tim Ingold) occur. water resources,1979 but also concerns human of John Waterbury, Hydro-politics of the control Nile water Valley resources for different purposes in a garden.

It seems that the identity shown during the ArabGARDENS OF HYDRO-HOLISM Norman times withof today’s zeitgeist The image onechoes the back this page hasin Sicily.

CONTEXT “In the ancient world, large bodies of water formed The irrigation system that sustained gardens appeared three times in the booklet. It isand an the “The neo-classical thatand hadnations, confined natural boundaries culture for people but lake that acted as a propaganda tool to showcase excerption from the Shahnameh (the Book attention to classicallandscape antiquitieslooks eventually went the power of the Kingdom are strong backups for today’s geopolitical very different.” of Kings), written byallPersian poet Ferdowsi. out of Tata fashion and early decades of the 1800s Zenia - executive director of global flourishment.

We may agree that water is an very We gradually unveil different elements in how marked the beginning of a longexpansion period of study development and international at XPrize important resource, and we would like to show the picture to show that none of them could and reflection on medieval Sicilian architecture, the this importance is addressed through the origins. result of which was to confirm the rise of the ‘ArabAs the anthropologist Timthe Ingold has said, looking actually be left out of system.

Norman as geographer an embodiment Sicilian identity.” into these irrigation systems is not to take stock of When thestyle’ Berber drewofthe shape of (Antonino andisland Emanuela Piazza) – La Sicily as theAbbadessa shape of the in Maredolce their contents but tothe follow what is going on, tracing One may ignores water flows in the Favara, a synecdoche and a mirror were created in the multiple trails of becoming, wherever lead. background at first, however, it is thisthey element “The age ofFollowing the Norman Sicily gone the history. thisdynasty action, in one can has interpret The evolution of this holistic garden can then form that sustain ecosystem. Or we would rather down in history as a period of in admirable an environment within which today’s creativity may the meaning of hydro-politics an open tolerance way: it is EMS say, it is a system which uses water in a wise and highly cultured, enlightened rule.”states over not only about cooperation between occur. way that keep the environment vital. We are (Ettore Sessa) but also concerns human control of water resources, restricted a resource, while at the water resources for different purposes in a garden.

GARDENS by OF such HYDRO-HOLISM “It was not until Norman times that Palermo same time we struggle good use of it.

The image on the back to of make this page has acquired its enduring reputation as a garden city.”

CONTEXT appeared three times in the booklet.

It is an (Giuseppe Barbera)culture that had confined “The neo-classical For this project we look into the site Maredole excerption from the Shahnameh (the Book attention to classical antiquities eventually went -ofLaKings), Favarawritten as it has a rich context indicating a

by Persian poet Ferdowsi. out of fashion and early decades of the 1800s to Bergson was the claim that in this constant evolving situation and the We gradually unveil different elements in marked the beginning of a long period of study nt of creation, of life and growth, lies the aforementioned echoing zeitgeist.

Tocould be and reflection on medieval Sicilian architecture, the the picture to show that none of them of time: ‘Wherever anything lives’, he wrote, Politics of Water 10 more specific, we try to search the origin, result of which was to confirm the rise of the ‘Arabactually be left out of the system. open somewhere, a register which timeofisSicilian identity.”

Norman style’ as an in embodiment the starting point of a system, and separate scribed’ (Bergson 1911: 17).” and Emanuela Piazza) (Antonino Abbadessa objects gardening existing One mayfor ignores the water flowsorinpre-existed the old)

GARDENS OF HYDRO-HOLISM

LISM

on the site, at dissecting them and arranging background first, however, it is this element

“The age of the Norman dynasty in Sicily has gone them by different purposes. that sustain ecosystem.

Or we would rather that the identity the Arabdown inshown historyduring as a period of admirable tolerance say, it is a system which uses water in a wise times echoes with today’s zeitgeist in Sicily. and highly cultured, enlightened rule.” ation system thatSessa) sustained gardens and the way that keep the environment Wegarden. are A garden of hydro-holism is a vital. radical (Ettore acted as a propaganda tool to showcase restricted by such resource,ecosystem, while at thewhich It is a garden of aacomplex er of the Kingdom areuntil strong backups “It was not Norman timesfor that Palermo same time we struggle to make good use of it. is mysterious, infinite for discourse, difficult ment. We may all agree that water is an very acquired its enduring reputation as a garden city.” to model after and exceeds anthropocentric nt resource, and we would like to show how (Giuseppe Barbera) For this project we look into the site Maredole context. ortance is addressed through the origins.

- La Favara as it has a rich context indicating a nthropologist Tim Ingold has said, looking Last but not least, it erases the inscription of se irrigation systems is not to take stock of time. ntents but to follow what is going on, tracing 100 Politics of Water 10 becoming, wherever they lead. ple trails of ution of this holistic garden can then form

d

Gardens of a Thirsty Island

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THE TRADITIONAL IRRIGATION SYSTEM

senia - gebbia - risittaculu - saja - turiciuniatu - gibbiuni - cunnutti - vattali

THE TRADITIONAL IRRIGATION SYSTEM

senia - gebbia - risittaculu - saja - turiciuniatu - gibbiuni - cunnutti - vattali

“Indeed, the landscape still retains visible evidence of the old practices and the echoes of“Indeed, Arabic expressions in present-day Sicilian the landscape still retains visible dialect show just ancientand andthe deep the evidence of the oldhow practices echoes of Arabic expressions in present-day Sicilian Arab cultural influence penetrated.” dialect show just how ancient and deep the Arab cultural infl uence penetrated.”

Discovering the long-during parts in Palermo gardens. Are we being gardened byDiscovering these objects? they become theGradually, long-during parts in symbols culturalAre heritage andgardened shape us Palermoofgardens. we being who we are today.they become by these objects?

Gradually, symbols of cultural heritage and shape us who we are today.

GIUSEPPE BARBERA - botanist and professor in Palermo

GIUSEPPE BARBERA - botanist and professor in Palermo

Politics of Water

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DISPLACED GARDENS

Methods and techniques

TERRITORY

Methods and Techniques

PROFESSOR TOMMASO LA MANTIA

Professor of Agriculture at the University of Palermo and local farm owner La Mantia Family Farm

The economy established by the traders of the Muslim world across the Old World enabled the diffusion of many crops and farming techniques among different parts of the Islamic world. This was in conjunction with the adaptation of crops and techniques to and from regions beyond the Islamic world.

be ploughed and leveled. Seeds planted 4.5 metres apart, and 60 cm deep .

“Crops and techniques introduced by the Muslims still constitute up till now the foundations of the economy.”

This included the migration of the citrus lemon which was imported in Europe between the 9th and the 10th century, starting their radiant invasion in Sicily. Arab conquerors taught the locals how to grow and harvest citrus fruit.

Some writers have referred to the diffusion of numerous crops during this period as the:

“Globalisation of crops” Muslim Heritage: Discover the golden age of Muslim civilisation

The technique to plant a lemon tree is still respected by traditional local farmers, it remains the same as in the 10th century based on the Arabic treatise of farming.

Planted in July - August, the land should

DISPLACED GARDENS

Muslim Heritage: Discover the golden age of Muslim civilisation

They introduced water distribution to Sicily using an irrigation system called ‘qanāts’ (open water channels through the land). Professor La Mantia explains how the Arabs were pivotal in improving the irrigation systems of Sicily, bringing about an age of fruitfulness through the agricultural production of citrus varieties.

However, recent droughts of water have forced farmers to adopt new technological advancements, which replace these Arabic systems to improve the irrigation. This network has slowly been replaced by PVC tubing since the 1980s.

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TRACES

TRACES

Those wonderful Islamic gardens disappeard long time ago, although Sicilian citrus groves commemorate their presence by being known still as giardini or even paradisi on the island’s east coast, names that retain the echo of their Arabic associations with beauty, intimacy and succour of the oasis in an arid desert landscape.

The ancient Arabic irrigation system is in some cases used also nowadays. I once asked a gardener to explain the irrigation proces to me.

First he showed me the water being pumped up from underground. The pump was electric, but at ground level the water was released into a senia, a raised stoned channel built to the traditional design. The pump rushed around the garden perimeter until it reached a small citrus grove. Then the gardener opened a tiny sluice gate, releasing the water into a temporary channel that he had raked into the dusty red earth at his feet. When water arrived at the trees, he opened the side of the channel with his rake. Suddenly diverted, the water ran rapidly into a space enclosed by a small berm made from raked earth at the foot of the tree. The ground was parched and the water seemed to hesitate on its surface as if it would rather run on. However, the ground gradually drank up the tiny lake and the lemon tree received its precious dose of water.

The Land Where Lemons Grow: The Story of Italy and its Citrus Fruit, Helena Attlee

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Gardens of a Thirsty Island

Gardens of a Thirsty Island

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B. RAINWATER PERMEATES A. COVER WITH TERRA ROSSA 2. SORTING & PILING

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7. INTERVIEWS with: Alberto Baraya Giuseppe Barbera Leone Contini Cassandra Funsten Tommaso La Mantia Stefano Mancuso Uriel Orlow Santo Pace

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ARTIFICIAL PLANTS Alberto Baraya

Artist Via Teatro Garibaldi, 46-56, 90133 Palermo PA, Italy 38° 6’52.5”N / 13°22’7.1”E

T: Our university is collaborating with Manifesta because OMA is part of the curatorial team and they are hosting students from all over Europa. Our studio is called radical gardening and it is a researched based studio. Which concludes in an architectural let’s say artist kind of result. So, we are allowed to do anything from making an installation or making a book.

R: We are free what kind object we’re going to make. And how our research will be presented basically.

A: That is great.

R: So, we are with seven groups and every group has their own theme and our theme is the botanical garden in Palermo. Have you been?

A: Yes, haha.

T: It is a beautiful place, right?

A: It is an incredible place, it is amazing. You know all this eh, it is a symbol of the importance of the relevance of the botanical studies in a place. This theater they have in center of the space and all these greenhouses wonderful ones. It is a good symbol of how was the relationship with the city and the tropical world.

T: I think it is a really interesting topic to look in to.

R: So, basically what we are trying to look for is the contemporary definition of a botanical garden.

A: I see from the point of view of the people who are managing the whole line on Manifesta is that Planetary garden is a good metaphor on understanding on how can people manage this ideas on contemporary behaviours.

Okay you can grow your own and that’s it. But for me the botanical garden has a kind of, is like an archive, it’s collection and it is a symbol of those collection from the travellers and this … attitude on certain cities on conquering the world. And it is a symbol of those treasures, life treasures. In that point, it is the most interesting thing in a botanical garden. This very scientific clue on how to manage a world. Not only scientific in the terms of biology, but in the terms of ethnography and anthropology that is probably the most interesting things in this contemporary think.

T: We also looked into your work and especially the Herbarium of artificial plants. And I think if i understood it correctly you are questionings the empirical objectivity of a botanical naturalist in this project and we were also doing our research looking into: is a garden not always artificial and is a garden a product of politic and

The Forbidden Urpflanze

economic interest? So, we’re looking into the objectivity or maybe the ‘not objectivity’ of the garden.

A: Yeah, that is one of the clues on how to understand this relation with the scientific whole. Probably the first step as an art practise, I want, I have relevant in my own practise this idea of… Okay the world is there, scientific says that about the world. I want to say something in the same levels about the world, in levels of significance, in levels on knowledge, different knowledge. But art practice is a kind of way of understanding the world and the art practice is to have the right to speak about the world. Not just only as an illustrative role in the scientific point of view. That is because maybe this herbarium of artificial plants is a kind of bad about that.

T: So, maybe what would be for you this definition of this objective garden.

A: I think, yes, science pretend to be the way of saying the truth about the world. But that is certainly not the truth. There is a lot of cultural circumstances from that.

“... a garden is a fake nature.

It is a controlled nature and even the botanical garden is not natural being there. Yes, there is but there is not. You have collections of parts of the world, this metaphor like about the botanical garden is that representation of the world” ... you have a small part of America of North America, of the south islands and northern part and so on and this like a small museum and this is this symbol of you can manage the world. And manage is like a desire and the symbol of that desire is the botanical garden.

T: That is really interesting.

A: I have no scientific knowledge more than you have in the school, or with the site to study, but all the students in elementary school are potential biologist, potential

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mathematicians, potential artist, and we decide different things and so we have in our education programs the possibility on being the top scientific but you to have this basis and this basis are like a kind of language we have we can all speak about flowers if not in a scientific level we understand the symbol of flowers and we collect nature. One of the decisions I take on my artist practice is to get this structure on knowledge, but not to repeat on a scientific level but on a symbolic level. It is really the base of the project; the project was based off course in this historic consequence of the naturalist European accidental scientific going into the tropics going in the world. It is like a tool on managing the world off course.

But I take a structure the same kind of language but to say another thing, trying to say something like that is not true.

T: So, there are certain restrictions or things that people come up with for the garden that are not the truth, but we consider them as the truth.

A: Yes, yes, certainly yes. And there is this experience that you have when I began to collect fake flowers and I ask people, oh yes, I like flowers and a woman show me her garden and she show both natural and fake ones in her garden and for her it was all the same. And because of the symbolic way of the garden is my small paradise, something like that.

T: That is really interesting, when we did research one of the first garden we looked into is the garden of Eden.

And you probably the famous painting by Jeroen Bosch, the triptych the garden of earthly delights and we were thinking maybe people trying to reproduce this garden to create their one paradise.

A: Yes exactly T: And even within this paradise there was already a restriction not eat the apple. So, in a way people are defining what a garden should be. And therefore, I think a garden could be considered as something artificial because we are trying to reproduce.

R: They are trying to shape it.

A: Yes, always.

R: Based on a very subjective way.

A: You know this still lives and these paintings is like kind of a collection of the world off course. But also, this remembrance of these garden for the urban people.

So, you take the flowers and you put them into your

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home in a vase. So, you take nature into your home as a remembrance a and you receive in the home spaces the people visiting with nature. It is the same attitude if you put fake ones. It is kind of tricky you want to remember but you do in a fake way it is like a kind of tricky.

R: What do fake plants symbolize for you? Because about symbolisation of normal plants A: Symbolisation, for me was a kind of personal, like reification of the reproduction of nature. Maybe because art could be understood as a reproduction of nature, this mimesis I copy the nature and collecting these copies of nature means probably one of repeating this artist practice as a way of speaking about it. I’m just repeating the same I am saying because I believe that.

And also, the research of historical symbolism on that in Columbia independence movement of the Spanish empire begin with the people who grow up in to the botanical expeditions so they take the science as a clue on probably being political independent. That’s the clue also on how I manage that. There is also that kind of very popular way of speaking about art representation of the world, you can speak flower I can speak flower. So, we can share a language so that is very common. Okay let’s talk about the world on this language of flowers. Not exactly, not the whole but this is part of the clue.

R: And something else, you mentioned a garden and a botanical garden. So, what is the fundamental difference between those two.

A: I think yes of course the scientific way of putting all that in a order, yes and now this way of saying okay this is the history of that plant and that comes from that part of the world and I can classify this part of this plant into this orders and this families but actually this classification is not more useful now science get an order on plants about the EDM (DNA) so this clues of order are just old.

And in case the desire on getting all in order is still alive.

You want to control. You can manage the order of those books in so much many different ways. The things that happen in a botanical garden. And in your own garden you can ask about aesthetics the history of your family to put this this flower or memories on your experiences to put in to the garden. And this also sharing something with your neighbour. You take this small plant in your garden ‘Oh let me take a little bit of this and I will grow up and this is like a growing relationships.’ That could be

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The Forbidden Urpflanze

one of the differences.

T: Also during our research we found really interesting list, it is by the European Union and there exists a list of all the forbidden species in Europe. What is your opinion by forbidding certain plants.

A: Yeah, that is off course this difference between legal and illegal.

T: That is what we thought in the beginning too, that like the marijuana plant is like illegal. But there is also a list of invasive species. Like species from China…

A: Yes, invasive and they can destroy the environment, that is quite, how to say that, that is the clue on the law and orders. What to say what is good and what is not good. What decide, what is possible and not possible.

In order to defend the society off course there is goal on all that but it is like for nature is a kind of joke.

This plant is not allowed to live here but it is growing and growing and growing, because of its own laws and possibilities or because the artificial cultivation of those plants. There are two different things. It happens and I am also working on that in Columbia there is a farm of a drug dealer he bring there hippopotamus in the 80’s he brings 6 hippopotamus or 3 hippopotamus when the empire fall down remain six hippopotamus at the farm he has a whole zoo. So, the elephant went in to a zoo, the giraffe goes in one other the rhinoceros, there was a collection of most of them of African animals, but the hippopotamus remains there because nobody take care of them and during 16 years 20 years and they are growing and growing in a natural way in a new place but there is a biological preoccupation what is happening with almost 50 hippopotamuses living in the centre of Columbia. This is out of law, the law also decides to kill some of them but people defend the animals and say no, no, no this is not going well. It has happened the same to plants here.

R: So, do you think that as we determine what invasive or forbidden plants are, we should basically scrap that and shouldn’t think like that and leave it biological.

A: Excuse me…

R: As in, we determine what invasive or forbidden plants are, do you therefore think that we should leave that up to the biological cycle and let them select those species that determine which ones are invasive or forbidden?

A: We will always intervene with that, you know this very fashion world of the Anthropocene, you know we are

The Forbidden Urpflanze

making… There is a decisions of economic decisions on taking care on that and also biologically that, that will kill nature. There is a lot of species that are dying and this is probably one of the, the symbolic meanings that as a result of this herbarium plant, what is happening to the world? There is somebody that is now collecting the fake ones. So, what is happening to nature, that we the next question we have to ask ourselves.

R: But if we were to say that we leave it to the biological cycle, do you think that is we were to say that plants are a reflection upon people, as a society, do you think that in the plant species there are, let’s put it in a very radical way, do you think that plants can be racists?

A: Racists is?

R: Ehm, let’s put it this way; discrimination.

A: That is the consequence of your question. Who is good for begin here? We are talking about the same, who is allowed and who is not allowed. This is something they can’t decide on. On this, talking about Darwin, how is the name in English?

T: The Origin of Species.

A: Yes, The Origin of Species, the survival of the fittest.

That’s it, that is something that can be applied, but it is not that easy as black and white but it happens and if you talk about the meaning of fake plants; what is natural and what is not natural, we could have this interpretation of what is allowed and not allowed. When I ask people and they say: ‘I hate fake plants and I don’t have fake plants!’ And I ask them; ‘But, do you have some?’ They say they don’t have, but they certainly do have one. Talk about your behaviour, your own behaviour.

T: Regarding the idea of this plant can be here and that plant can be there, for our project we were thinking about designing something like a garden only with invasive species and only with forbidden plants just to question the role of the human in this garden. I think this is the direction we are heading but didn’t decide yet.

A: Did you hear about an artist here in Sicily, that somebody from a town was put in jail because he was growing hemp. In another place. But also, he was charged not only because of cultivation, growing hemp but also by taking energy without permission. To grow a plant.

That is the same, yes, I asked about poppy flowers, there is poppy flower cultivation here? There is no cultivation but there is poppy flower, that is a very common plant

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will do, but there is no condition in Europe for that. This only because they should grow up in the tropical land and so on. It could be this allowed and not allowed plants.

T: I think like putting hemp plants and things, that is maybe an obvious thing to do to plant forbidden plants, but if you collect the list of the European Union of the invasive species it is subtler I think of framing the invasive plants as the forbidden plants. Maybe we could do like a taxonomy or a make a kind of botany out of it like mark them really carefully.

A: Yeah it is like, I don’t know, it could be make a tension what happening right now what is happening right now with forbidden plants, you take care on what you are doing because the probably there will be a biological problem. The most interesting thing is what we are talking is what is on this, where is the line on forbidden things. What is the visible and invisible things that we are talking about? This line between also fake nature, you trick me, hahaha T: The Tulip, there is a nice history behind the tulip, they are imported from turkey into Europe in the 16th century. You had this tulip mania in the Netherlands, people wanted to create the black tulip. The black tulip doesn’t exist so they were all painting the tulip black.

There was this kind of tulip stock market and people were investing in this black tulip. Then the bubble exploded.

A: Ah that is very interesting. I like this history. I know about this history, financial market based on tulips.

That is incredible in the Netherlands. That collection of paintings of tulips are amazing and one of the most developed skills in painting was in that era. That is very interesting that relation with economy that also forbidden and not forbidden plants is based on economic dynamics.

If there is something that is out of law, but people need, there is going to be huge business, it is like the hemp and the drugs happens. Is it is not forbidden there will be not be economical point or top. How are planning to do that?

T: That’s really hard. We were also thinking of making fake plants because I think if we’re just going to all of the invasive and forbidden plants, there will maybe also be a problem.

A: It is quite interesting, I don’t know making the fake forbidden.

T: I think we want to make a statement like okay it’s ridiculous that there are like forbidden species and you

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plant them, it could be a strong statement and I think it’s also legally a bit complex to do, so maybe we could.

R: That’s very much in line with radical gardening though.

A: A very good archive to manage, is what does the law say about biology; what is forbidden and because of what? Why? That collection of laws and rules of what is forbidden, that could be a good list to, to see.

T: And otherwise we were thinking of maybe a garden of fake plants, of the forbidden plants, but I think it’s really hard because no one makes plants of those plants, so I think we need to make them ourselves.

A: I did a project on a ramp, where I was trying to get to coca leaf and I had to make a special design because this is not popular you know. In case of the poppy flowers there is in garden and the artificial flower market there is, but low profile. And hennep there is but coca no. You will probably have to develop some kind of skills of making plants.

T: I think it could be really interesting.

A: I join with you. I’m completely on the mood, yes.

R: We just need to find the right way.

T: So, you are collecting artificial plants, right? Or do you order or buy them A: I am following these non-objective ways of working.

Yes I, I developed a project, I mean a collection, a design, an artistic project being like a collector. In any case, I try to find some special plants that I didn’t find, so I propose to do that for the collection of artificial plants. I do a huge tree of latex. I didn’t find somebody who has copied this version.

T: So, in a way it’s like the second generation of botany, to do the botany of the fake plants?

A: This is good. This is like the botanist becoming a gardener. A gardener or even a farmer.

T: Yes, that would be really fun. And I can imagine..

T: That would be really cool, like making all the fake plants and maybe like order a lot of fake plants and combining them into things like the forbidden species.

R: As in, combining every forbidden specie with each other?

T: No, I think if you want to make the plants yourself you use something from a stamp from one fake plant and…

A: Ah yes, that is what happens with fake plants. There

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And also there is some kind of, how do you say in biology when things go wrong, this like, what’s the word, when something biologically crosses... Not metamorphosis T: Mutation.

A: There is also mutation in fake plants production.

T: That’s really interesting.

A: I have seen a lot of places where you can buy plants also and I see roses with petals of different plants. And I think to myself; ‘What is happening here?’ The tulip but see here roses, what happens here is a mutation merchandise. And it happens also because of economical things; a factory they have these things they are producing thousands, because you are going to order and specie to a factory in China, you must make thousands otherwise it will not be economically good. And you have a stock which you didn’t sell.

T: That could also be really interesting by doing this garden of mutation plants, so just make plants that do not exist.

A: This is like a surrealistic way on the herbarium study possibility.W R: We could also say, because every specie is very exotic, why doesn’t the exoticness and excellence become higher if you combine them, by doubling and tripling them.

T: So, we are still looking for the right approach. I think we have some ingredients for our project now we need to figure out how to exhibit it.

A: That word that you are talking about, about this exotic, about what is exotic, it is important to understand what is allowed and not allowed and what is comfortable here and not. What is the meaning of exoticism. What is exotic coming from an outsider or different environment.

That is what we are talking about.

R: But, with that question in mind, how would you define exotic?

A: I made some questions about that, and a lot of people and they say: ‘Okay exotic, that is exotic of he is exotic because I am not the same kind of,’ But, exotic is around the corner. It’s there, it’s behind you, it’s beside you, it’s in all parts and you can say it comes from outside. That is a dictionary definition, but also you use that in your daily life.

R: The coffee could be exotic as well.

A: Yes, it is.

R: Everything around us is exotic. I mean even the

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iPhone is exotic.

A: Yes. One of the things that happens on the world, you say something is exotic because you are not, you don’t have the, the attitude of seeing or being with, even considering that most of the things are exotic in a historical way; where do you come from, where do you stay, how your city rolls up is because of this interchange and this non-ruled world. Of course, there is a part of ruled world, but there are a lot of things out of the rules.

And you are a product out of the rules.

T: I was wondering whether maybe it is okay, if later on in our project we contact you again through Skype?

A: Yes, yes you can.

T: And maybe especially, but I’m not sure because we haven’t decided yet to make fake plants...

A: I join it, absolutely! I love this!

T: So, so maybe do you have any recommendations where we can maybe order some leaves or things to get started.

A: You want to, you want to… Things to do… I, I can show some of the things I do here in Sicily and maybe we can... You ask me about Palermo to begin?

T: Yes, yes.

R: Let’s go and have a look.

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NEED NO MORE GARDENS IN PALERMO Giuseppe Barbera

professor Vicolo del Castellaccio, 21/23, 90123, Palermo, 38° 5’28.91”N /

13°23’17.52”E

We got the chance to meet Giuseppe Barbera at Castle Maredolce and the island on 27th April, 2018.

The professor talked about the history of this place, mentioning an interesting point that the Berber geographer al-Idrisi suggested King Roger II to build the island of Maredolce as the same shape of Sicily island he drew at that time. He also talked about his vision of bring water back to this area and shared his view of the reuse of a historical landscape like Maredolce in nowadays Palermo.

Grifone was full of underground water. Water and the aqueducts in this area were important for buildings in Sicily.

The following is a full record of the one-hour trip.

Noted: Giuseppe Barbera (GB); Haozhuo Li (HZ) Jiao Chen (J)

The geographer was here studying (something) for his drawings, maps and so on. And he gave the island the same shape as Sicily.

Arabic landscape; arabic orchards. In Mediterranean summer, you need a big amount of water, and you need a big basin to store the water.

The so-called Arabic Revolution, new crops, water irrigation, new agriculture and thus the landscape, were saved by the Normans. The place where we are now was a classic farm during the Roman period. You can see that there are ruins... .

The lake, is called Maredolce, the “sweet sea”, compared to the salt sea of the Mediterranean Sea.

Then this place was formerly the castle of an Arabic king.

Then there was King Roger II (Roger Secondo, the Norman King), who was famous for (building) the Royal Palace in Palermo. This place was famous for its pleasure, such as hunting, fishing and so on during the time of King Roger II and even till Federico II. It is famous not only in Sicily but also in Southern Italy, as a beautiful castle and a beautiful place for pleasure, for fishing, for love, for poetry, for rest.

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If you look at the map of Mediterrainean (the Middle Age) by al-Idrisi, the shape of Sicily is the same as the shape of this island.

If you look at the map of Mediterrainean (the Middle Age) by al-Idrisi, the shape of Sicily is the same as the shape of this island.

In the garden and on the island: GB: Okay, this is the Conca d’Oro. Fifty years ago, citrus, oranges, lemons and mandarins surrounded the town everywhere. When the Normans arrived in Palermo (12th century), they found a town full of gardens and water.

They said the place was a paradise. And that was the Arabic, the Islamic Palermo. The Normans appreciated the Arabic style of life, the Arab style of architecture.

And this place was first full of water, because Mountain

The place is not like Venice, a lagoon, a salty lagoon. (It is) An island, a big basin, and you can see the walls.

I love this place very much because I study Conca d’Oro, and I can imagine what it was like through this place.

The mounains were full of fruits, orchards... in the middle age of Palermo.

I love this place very much because I study Conca d’Oro, and I can imagine what it was like through this place.

HZ: We learn from the historical map that there is a

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church San Rico at the other side of the motorway. Why is it abandoned when you are doing renovation of this area (you are renovating the castle)?

GB: Yeah... It’s difficult to say why. You see there is a motorway now (blocking the connection of the church and this area). So it is very difficult now to connect the places. The church is a 17th century church (not that old enough), but it is very important.

Let’s walk into the island, and you can see the church.

Today the question (task) is, we have to put again water here, and we have to maintain the citrus, not only in the island.

Now we go to the island and discuss about the oranges, lemons and so on. ...Of course I know to put again water into this place is from a strong symbolic point of view.

If you go to the mainroad (the main strada), you can see the Maredocle. You can imagine there is such a place behind the wall. This is very important in the last 40, 50 years. (The place) Was out of control. This is a place controlled by Mafia (Ciaculli, Greco the landowner).

And here, this place is sort of a refuge.

(In front of the wall of Castle Maredolce, someone pointed to the Roman bricks) But the wall is a Norman one. Now this is important ruins of the Roman periods.

They are the ruins, the pipes of aqueducts which brought water from the mountain.

And now you can see the church (pointed to the opposite site).

HZ: Yesterday we found some black tubes beside the abandoned church, and they are fenced. Are they also for carrying water nowadays?

GB: (Look at the picture) Yes! Yes! These are the modern aqueducts.

HZ: Are they the same track of the historical ones?

GB: Yes! HZ: And there was a great lake, the water coming from a spring on the mountain, or?

GB: Not spring, but from the soil (underground water).

(Pointing to the caves in the mountain) There, you see the caves... At the end of 18th century, people found important fossil remains of elephants that were 300,000 - 400,000 years ago. There were small elephants. 400,000 years ago, Palermo was in a different climate, a tropical 70

climate. They are called the caves of the giants. (walking to the island and tasting mandarins) This is the very citrus landscape of Conca d’Oro, the very real one.

There are three different levels of vegetation. When the soil was not so deep, farmers planted vegetables.

When the soil is good and deep, water is enough, they (the farmers) planted citrus. The region has the richest orchards in the Mediterranean area.

You can grow (good enough) citrus only in Sicily, Spain and Greece, and you can sell them to Northern Europe, America and other places. It is very important for the economy of Palermo.

HZ: It is said that there is a policy of growing citrus in this place. Did people grow citrus under the strategy of government? (increasing agriculture production in Ciaculli) What were the former plants, or economic productive fruits in Mareedolce?

GB: You mean in Siciliy or Palermo? (J: In Ciaculli.) In Maredolce? (HZ: Yeah, in Maredolce.)

Okay. This is my opinion. I have an experience (example) of safeguarding and improving the traditional orchard of citrus in Sicily. (GB didn’t answer our questions but shared a positive way for managing orchards like Maredolce) Maybe you know the Garden of Kolymbetra, the garden of National Trust of Italy near Agrigento. Citrus groves are grown between Greek ruins (Valleys of Temples).

Many people go there to visit the botanical garden, to buy marmalade and to taste juices, you know, using in a different way of traditional orchards. (Selling fruits only to) Fruit markets are not sufficient. The fruits out of season do not become normal production, you cannot market them. The growers cannot be supported only by markets. They need a multifunctional system. They need the so-called “ecosystem” services. Someone has to pay for culture, for environment, not only for fruits.

The growers cannot be supported only by markets.

They need a multifunctional system. They need the socalled “ecosystem” services.

Someone has to pay for culture, for environment, not only for fruits.

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forests, (but) you need agriculture for such a place.

You need a close contact (connection) between farmers and trees.

multifunctional services. And there are so many people coming from Palermo and schools of Palermo that are willing to visit the citrus garden as I mentioned.

(GB did not answer the question, but stressed the importance of a multifunctional garden which a traditional citrus orchard can serve) The most important French historian (studying world histories of Mediterranean) Fernand Braudel once said in his book about Palermo, that “the orchards, the landscape of Palermo, give a landscape of paradise.”

(Noted by interviewer here: Fernand Braudel appraised Maredolce - La Favara as “the only Mediterranean landscape: paradise”, thanks to good water management, especially for the dry period from May to October).

HZ: So now the island is one orchard for one farmer?

The Conca d’Oro, particularly in the past was very famous for visitors and travellers coming from Germany, France and other places during the Grand Tour period.

They would tell you that when you looked at the beautiful buidlings, for instance, Capalla Palatina, in the historical town, don’t forget to look at the rural landscape, the countryside, the paradise of the Conca d’Oro. This is a very history for today.

If you have an agriculture landscape, you need agriculture. For rural landscape you need agriculture.

You can have gardens in forests, (but) you need agriculture for such a place. You need a close contact (connection) between farmers and trees.

In the terrain landscape, we are not machine-desired.

Look at the old tubes. They are not from Arabic, of course. But they are the same projections and types as the Arabic ones. It’s Arabic technique. In Sicilian dialect, the parts are called using old Arabic words. Then we have the gebbia; then we have the saja, which is the channel; then we see the turciuniatu. You see, water comes from here, you close there, for the route going there, you close here...

And this is the cunnutti. There you will find vattali, a small tool to separate water.

I hope that the next future, people will come in Maredolce, of course for the Palace (but if you go to the palace of Capalla Palatina, of course you will see much more - the view is more grandeurous), (but also) see the landscape of the Conca d’Oro. You see the landscape and you imagine what it was before.

During the Arabic-Norman period or former Islamic Period, you can’t find mandarins. Because mandarins arrived here from England, China and so on at the beginning of the 19th century. But you can find lemons and oranges. And we will see, maybe you know, in the poetry by an Arabic poet in the 12th century which said the beauty of the place, citrus, lemons and oranges as well as the experience of looking at fishes.

In the terrain landscape, we are not machine-desired.

And the trees are planted in a regular design. Each of them has a distance of three metres from the others. You understand what I meant when I said we had a green sea.

Not everywhere, in any case.

And... Conca d’Oro was like this. Most of the rural areas were citrus and three levels of vegetation, as I said before.

Vegetables, oranges, and different types of fruite trees.

(Fruit trees such as) Apricot in this case; walnut; loquat; red fruits tree (pomegranate)...

(walking to the east edge of the island) These modern new buildings are history of Palermo (during the sack of Palermo).

Usually you eat mandarins in January, February.

If you have an agriculture landscape, you need agriculture. For rural landscape you need agriculture.

You can have gardens in 72

GB: This moment? (HZ: Yes, this moment.) A very good question. We saw the first part of the island in abandonment. And here we don’t have a perfect cultivation, but quite a good cultivation. The difference is that the region asked the farmers to leave the (abandoned) place 10 years ago, and you wouldn’t grow fruit trees, and you see the results. While the second half of the island, 5 years ago, the region said they took the land, and the cultivation could be remained.

HZ: You said you wanted to bring back the water to the basin here?

GB: I want to bring the water not into the basin, but near the castle. Near the house we can put water into a small lake, but not everywhere, not so big.

HZ: And the water will come from the same source?

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good. And you can recognize them with the seeds.

GB: Yes, the same source. (HZ: Lake Favara?) Yes. You know Favara means “spring”. Well, bringing back water to the place is my idea. We have to discuss with others; we need a project of course. The idea is the lake and the citrus can stay together.

(someone asked about how many people kept the trees on the island) Four people. For the question of farmers: the region helps young farmers who protect Maredolce (can be found in an annoucement) and it has condition that they need to produce fruits.

(someone in the group asked whether other fruits will be brought to the garden) Other trees? Yes, in the part near the mountains. They are not trees. I will give you the results of a workshop we’ve done nearly one year ago.

Here we have the traditional landscape. There we can have a new landscape, for scholars, for students, for quartiere (neighborhood), that we have a place to play, to study and plant different new trees. In this place we are to conserve.

(after hearing the guard talking in Italian) This is very intersting. They used to collect two times a year for mandarins. In October when they are still green, they use them for the oil of perfume. And in February and March, for fresh fruits. In order to harvest big fruits in February, they need to thin (maybe take some away from branches) trees. So they sell green mandarins to Chanel... (for irrigation and watering trees) Now the system uses underground water.

The new page I think is to maintain the traditional landscape where it exists.

Otherwise what should we do here? Modern parks, modern gardens, but why?

(walking back to the castle) Imagine the boat inside, and the water...

According to the poem that we learned about Norman period, this place was a park for sugar cane cultivation, in the 15th, 16th centuries. Then it was a place for fruits, olives and vineyards. From 19th century it started to be a place for citrus. First oranges, then lemons, due to pests and different pests’ arrivals. The pests affected the roots of oranges, then you have to change rootstocks. At the end of the 19th century, there arrived a new pest affecting the lemons. Then we started with the mandarins. And mandarins in Ciaculli (the Mandarino tardivo di Ciaculli, late mandarin of Ciaculli) become the last page of the history of Conca d’Oro. The new page I think is to maintain the traditional landscape where it exists. Otherwise what should we do here? Modern parks, modern gardens, but why? We can have a beautiful, productive, sustainable, from a different point of view, landscape, environment and cultural identity. This is my personal idea, and people agree with me.

HZ: Are the citrus grown here being put to the commercial market?

GB: Yes. (HZ: So where do you sell?) There is an agriculture enterprise in Ciaculli, still exist in the Conca d’Oro, that collects citrus from the whole area. Maybe you can see Ciaculli mandarins in Milan in February more frequently. They can even be sold to places outside Italy.

The mandarins here are known as “mandarin with seeds”.

Usually consumers don’t like seeds in the fruits. Maybe they (seeds) are the mark of the fruits. They taste very Politics of Water

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COLONIAL PLANTS Leone Contini

Gardener Via Lincoln 2, 90123 Palermo PA, Italy 38° 6’811,”N / 13°22’1397”E

R: So, basically, I’m not sure if you know enough about what we are doing but we are students from the TU Delft and every team has been given a theme which has formed Palermo, with a main theme of radical gardening and we have been given the botanical garden. We are trying to look for the contemporary definition of a botanical garden. With this is mind we have a few questions and statements which we would like to discuss with you.

Where shall we start, just with the main questions?

T: Yes. R: So, basically this botanical garden has been formed out of certain plants and we..

T: Every age day or century or decade they added a new section with a different philosophy within the garden, so I think the first section, the Linnaean section is super strict and organized and if you go more back into the garden this is more inspired by English landscape gardening L: More romantic.

T: Yes, more romantic.

R: Every part has its own identity.

T: So, maybe it is interesting to ask you what your identity is of your garden?

L: You know what part this is?

T: The experimental.

L: The colonial garden […] so yes but I’m also interested in the Linnaean part because of the naming thing […] it is a way to colonize the language, to impose the universal language and knowledge. […] universalism […] it was degraded into colonialism. […] at some point there was still some potential of universalism, and in the colonial era there was nothing like that. It was pure domination […] And this one is also very interesting to me, the colonial garden, because […] in Italy we never dealt with our colonial history. It was something that […] was put in the closet.

T: So, they just put it in a safe, never talked about it again…

L: We do this often […] it was like the Nazi massacres after 1943 in Italy, all the documents were put in the closet and turned against the wall. It was literally done like this. […] it is a national habit to lock stuff up, also colonialism was denied together with fascism, but the truth is that the colonial project started before.

I read stuff from the years ten about the attempt of acclimatization of varieties from colonies and it would

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be interesting to compare it with the Netherlands. I think the Netherlands had a huge botanic museum in Indonesia, right?

R: Could well be, I’m not sure.

T: In Leiden, one of the big university cities, there is a botanical garden and they all imported species from the colonies also to exhibit and do the research and try to find like new interesting materials like rubber or medicine or whatever.

L: When was it founded?

T: I think maybe in the 16th century, early 17th century, but this is the oldest in the Netherlands.

L: And this one?

T: This was is later, but I think when they started it wasn’t like a botanical garden but more a medicinal garden. And this one is more 18th century, like 1797.

L: And it is interesting that in this State, the “Kingdom of the Two Sicilies”, was not a colonial one, but on the contrary it was devoured by a young and soon colonial country, Italy. […] But here they were very European I would say […] which is also connected with universalism […] Universalism is double faced […] the Netherlands where already active in colonial activities back then, no?

T: Yes, I think we were quite quick with this sort of exploiting.

L: I think this is really interesting because here it was like a reflection of something that was happening somewhere else, I mean the creation a botanical garden here.

T: But I think the first botanical garden was in Italy, was in Pisa, that is what we found.

L: When?

R: 1544, then Padua came and Bologna and then it spread through Europe T: I think it started with monasteries where they all were growing crops and herbs and documenting this…

L: The Medici villas […] had the “limonaia”, you know in Tuscany you cannot keep lemons outdoor, so all the Renaissance villas always have this sort of indoor space, like a greenhouse […] back then the Tuscans were very interested in botanic experiments. There is a collection of paintings in Poggio a Caiano, where I live, there are paintings picturing varieties of so called exotic species.

It would be very interesting to frame it historically, I mean I’m not the one entitled to do so, but it could be interesting to compare what Sicily was back then,

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when they created this garden, this universal collection, with what was happening in other parts of the Italian peninsula […] Sicily is a sort of geographical paradox. […] in climate-terms I think it never goes under zero.

Sicily is a border. But let’s go back to your question. … migration can neutralize the exoticism embodied in this place, and in the way the botanic garden always represents the Other. For example in italy there are many farmers with foreign origins, and for me to handle the soil and to make it generative… it means taking care of a place. Here in the garden I had a very welcome intrusion of this guy from the Philippines, and I say intrusion but I don’t mean it […] He was just interested in using part of this space, to create his own garden here, to grow his vegetables, since in the Philippines he was a gardener. It is also about pride, to represent his heritage into a public display.

T: Really interesting and I think that maybe we can shortly explain what we are doing because we are doing this research and have the opportunity to exhibit something. And during this research we kind of formed this statement that the botanical garden or maybe the garden in general is some sort of artificial nature because of man. So in a real way humans are trying to dominate nature by saying you have to put it like this, and call it that and then further on in our research there is this list by the European Union and they formulated like forbidden/invasive species and when you think about it marihuana plants or coca plants, it is not these but all kinds of invasive plants, they say they cannot grow and we found that an interesting concept because then we still are trying to limit nature in a way. So, we think it is interesting to make a garden just with them in it as they are on the invasive list. So, what is invasive and who are we to decide? Because if you’re going to put the seed here in the ground, it would grow here anyway so there is this very artificial.

R: In a subjective way…

L: Very interesting this research. [...]

T: The border is really unclear because every knows the poppy and it grows everywhere but they also have this annotation of heroin or opium, so all these side things are based on humans and not on nature. And also, another thing that inspires us was this painting by Hieronymus Bosch, it’s called the Garden of Earthly Delights and it is

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a triptych painting with three gardens and the first one is the Garden of Eden, everyone in Europe knows the story of Eden from the Bible and this was also a garden with a restriction because there was an apple and you cannot eat the apple. So, so that’s interesting because that is the same topic we are trying to understand. And the second garden is the Garden of Earthly Delights where all the people sin, so they walk around naked, eating apples, partying; everything that is like not allowed they are doing it. And the third garden is an image of the hell, so I think the painting shows you that if you behave well you can live in paradise, but if you sin you will end up in hell.

So, I think somewhere it is embedded in our history but also in the history of the garden that there is something of restrictions. And we want to question that in our project.

L: Yes, nice. [...] but yes so far domesticized plants you have this fear of invasion, but really it is hard to imagine how the mesoscale sized plant could invade the environment, it would be the end of the starvation on earth no if cabbages would grow like that, imagine, it would be a miracle even in a garden. And it is not only it is also that huge wars and failure and the process of domestication took very long and painful. Imagine potatoes that were little poisonous roots and the ants, this farmer has obtained to make something edible out of something kind of toxic. And it took centuries of food poisoning to get these potatoes which we have nowadays you know. It is a long process domestication. [...] Our culture is also domination on nature. In this case, it could even be transgenic, so yeah you never know.

“But this invasion is more perceived as… I relate it to xenophobia...” the relation of xenophobia and the paranoia of others becoming the guardians of the place is a hole in the roots you know it is managing, handling the roots. But maybe it’s the same beneath the fear of the wild species, you know, the core of this fear is probably not related to plants, it’s really a…

T: Psychological thing.

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L: Yes, maybe in this expenses phases of empires usually there is this eagerness to collect and embody, like this rice table which is also from Netherlands… How do you call a hot rice table?

T: We have like an ‘Indonesische rijsttafel’ which means an Indonesian rice table, which is a big buffet like everything from small balls of rice to meat or…

L: Which is sort of a colonial representation of Indonesian food no? It’s also to recollect and put together the whole empire no? But in this moment, I think it was in this sort of expansion colonial, imperial identity and then I think we live in a moment of contraction.

T: I think this is a really interesting thought, because yes, we live in a time where everyone is like more thinking about themselves and protecting. [...]

L: For sure, [...] Look at Chinese food in Italy; in the 80’s it was exotic because there were only a few migrants but the most the Chinese migrants grew, and the last was cold the Chinese food. No, it was a process that is why they started to make Japanese, they started to make sushi. Because at some point in the 90’s it was bearable for them, the Chinese restaurants were simply empty because it was considered junk food at some point and I can remember in the 80’s it was still considered exotic and then it became cheap junk food and then they started making Japanese food. I mean it is fact this new, hipster lifestyle and this Sichuan, have you ever tried this Sichuan Chinese, it is very spicy and it is again fancy somehow maybe because rich Chinese are now coming to Italy to study and they are pretty cool as they follow their own fashion and their own style and they are objectively cool and cosmopolitan and they like this Sichuan restaurants. So, the same family that used to have this exotic, fake, Chinese cuisine then they switch to Japanese stuff and now they are changing to the Sichuan, a sort of Chinese globalized, not anymore related with migration but high upper class migration let’s say.

R: [...]

L: [...] This is Chinese food [...] and they cook for the Chinese people. It is a bit like farming, you can focus on migrants and Italian companies being slaves, this is what happened in Puglia. There is something common… In the 70’s there was this huge Maoist community of Italian Maoist, and there were many, including my parents friend and all these Maois want to eat this Chinese food.

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Then they went to this guy, who actually escaped from China because of communism so he was probably the last Maoist on earth, [...] You know the Chinese we eat in the west? This is not the real Chinese food, they even have a name for that in China, the food for us and the food for them, it is confided in linguistic terms and so what this guy was serving these Maoist people was food that was shaped by the Chinese migration. So, it was a completely beautiful misunderstanding about authenticity. [...]

T: And I think, or maybe it is a question, but if you look at plants do you also think that they, when we domesticate them, they also turn into plants for them and plants for us, so where they originally come from domesticate them in another way. Let’s say with other techniques, so traditionally they were farmed biologically and by hand and we industrialize it and do it on big scale in a more advanced way so that the plants kind of change or the cultivation changes when they are imported or exported? L: Well, domestication of plants is a very, did you say domestication? It is a very, like a long time ago, a long process, I mean Chinese celery which is almost the same of what we have but is a bit thinner, concentrated and it works well with this fast cooking, and crispy. It is great with calamari and often because of the Chinese vision of food you often balance it with calamari, I am not an expert on Chinese medicine, so it is really matching the philosophy of food and the standing of food and the ideology and the taste and the techniques and everything you know. And it is funny that here the Chinese migrants they are growing their own celery which is almost the same but for them it is a big, big, big difference. For me [...] I can see some differences; ours is more watery and big and theirs is more concentrated.

And the same for cauliflower, ours is very compact and theirs is… Each part of the flower they are all, they are not connected, they are more not that compact you know.

Spring onions are also different because ours are very fat in the white part because that is what we eat and theirs are not because they, I consider myself a bit Chinese at this point because I lived in a Chinese neighborhood for 15 years and I did my shopping in Peninsula Italy, Tuscan China actually… It is really Chinese, I mean my groceries are Chinese, I don’t buy because it is disgusting. And the Chinese vegetables that are buy are evenly expensive as going to a boutique or it is really bad, collected by this

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almost slave labor, actually they tried to track it down but you never know. And it is bad, it is bad you know that is why I go the Chinese family, you know I know them and I know the garden which they grow their food in and I know the farmer, he is not doing organic but he is not using chemicals as well if possible, but in the big distribution I’m sure they will as they need as prevention as a potential disease. You know because it is a production and they know that in the procedure they will have to do something about the herbicides or the snails. And they do it because it is a procedure, and I know that this guy is not doing this because he is managing something that is twenty times bigger than this garden here. And he and his brother also live there and they don’t want to poison themselves. And you see they use a lot of horse dunk. So, I consider myself on the edge now, so the spring onions yes are objectively a bit different because it is a matter of time which at some point will hit us. So yeah, and in this pergola, you will hopefully at some point see all the different varieties of girds bearing together. And the difference is really small, it is almost the same but it is somewhere crucial in this identity part…

T: I think it is interesting, because the sub title of the Manifesta 12 is: The Planetary Garden cultivating coexistence. That is the title and in a way, you are cultivating the coexistence of the same species with all with a different background and story.

R: So, what do you hope to do with this? Do you want to continue doing this, or will you expand it or test it or?

L: [...] Some of the I want to dry to keep the seeds for the future…

R: There are a few drying at the theater, there is a box…

L: Yes, yes, yes. I’m very proud of my collection in the theater. Because I came here last year collecting dried ones and then I decided to grow my own, and dry my own. It could be a nice workshop for kids for example.

For sure I will try to make something and experiment and also to see if they can hybridize with the bees. Maybe it is not me needed to go there, I see it as a shelter framing xenophobia as well, in a way it is made of nothing it is like fragile but that is why I like it. But before you were asking about industrial production because with genetically modified stuff we jump into another rail.

Modification is very fast and could be in a few months but before it needed hundred generations of harvests and

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now it can be done in one click. So, but this is another huge rail I am not trying to go there too much because it is another topic in a way. I stay on this anthropological, in which extent the vegetables are relevant for the representation of communities let’s say. Because if we go in this food realm, industrial, new capitalism, new generation and regulations it is really important. I think there are overlaps between my practise and other practises more focus on this biodiversity, because I don’t see this intrusion as, I do this with my “hands”, I also have local ancient seeds, but not only. I always think it is dangerous to have your own local ancient seeds it is very popular now, especially in Sicily there is a big discours about the ancient seeds. Actually the director of the botanic garden asked to plant these ancient beans from Sicily, which I am happy to grow to show people that this is not against Sicily or Sicilian identity. It is on the contrary a way to imagine a future where what happened to far to create such a beautiful culture, it will happen again in the future, no? Because it is funny you know they say that they are the outcome of interactions and Arabs, so why you want to stop this dynamic, this dynamism? The beans here arrive from somewhere else and the beans there, I have beans from a city in Tuscany and now these beans are considered as a pillar of local…

These beans in this area were brought in by a migrant coming back from America and he had to hide it because it was illegal, so this is interesting for your research.

So, he illegally imported them in Italy from somewhere overseas, hidden in his hat and now they are considered as heritage or… It is funny you know, it is like a paradox.

So, I can imagine that in a hundred years this orchard [...] will be considered as pillars, western Sicilian, southern Tuscan, they will proudly be restored in refrigerators and seed banks. [...]

T: So, maybe to conclude, that this European concept of invasive is a really weird concept because in a way all the seeds came from somewhere…

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“Each seed is a vessel, it is a shuttle, a time capsule. It can preserve information through time and space. It is amazing.”

And the girds, when they create this wooden hollow structure it is a vessel for vessels. And dried gird can float so for example there is this crime mystery about gird arriving in south America, because they found girds there before the humans arrived. So, probably it happened that they were floating through the Atlantic Ocean from Africa to south America. When the humans arrived there, they already found this variety. So, it is impossible to stop life and stop the seeds. It is nonsense and a contradiction in terms. We won’t have any of the Italian delicious recipes without, of course it is obvious you know, we won’t have aubergines they came with the Arabs. [...]

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PIONEER PLANTS Cassandra Funsten

Landscape architect and scholar Via Lincoln 2, 90123 Palermo PA, Italy 38° 6’811,”N / 13°22’1397”E

C: In this garden, there are almost no roses. Any roses were added later, but Maria Carolina T: I have seen some I think...

C: Yes, you’re right, there are some at the entrance but they are very discreet. No big flourishing rose garden and that was because Maria Carolina hated roses, the queen, because Josephine had a famous rose garden and so she prohibited roses. She prohibited, I mean, she did sometimes have a white Banksy rose, but she prohibited red roses, any kind of flamboyant red rose. And ehm, tried to repair it with the side care of the central plant in her garden.

R: One quick question, would we be able to record the interview?

C: Yes of course, but as you put so much work into your project, please check the plant names. Because it is such a shame to see a beautiful project and all the plant names are wrong. And ehm, it’s the kind of thing of misspelled words where botanists just go... No. R: Yes, I can fully imagine and understand.

C: (Cassandra and Leone talking Italian).

C: And then ehm, when you’re finished looking at these plants, I can show you the most poisonous plants in the botanical garden.

R: That would be great.

C: It exposes fruit and ehm flowers. We don’t put the name on the plant because we don’t want people to identify it.

T: Is this for insurance reasons?

C: No, it’s because the fruits look like black olives and so it would be very easy to eat some of them.

L: But they are reachable?

C: Oh yes!

L: So, someone could eat them?

C: Yes, I mean we warn visitors that there are toxic plants in the garden and that they and the children especially shouldn’t be eating them. We just don’t say which ones are toxic.

T: They all might be toxic.

C: Yes, they all might be toxic.

R: Just don’t touch them. But didn’t you say that last time that if you touch something or take something from the botanical garden you’ll get banned or something?

C: That is something which was one of the original rules yes, you will be exiled from the kingdom.

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L: If you touch the orange?

C: No, if you damage or take something out of the garden. Yeah, if you take out a plant. If you touch something you won’t be exiled. Manlio might come and say; ‘Don’t touch the plants!’ The first time I met Manlio was kicking me out of the plants bed under the avocado tree here, he doesn’t even remember. He always tells me this very romantic story about the second time we met and it was like the light came down from above.

R: But there is a plant which you can touch here, which we all tried.

C: Yes, no you can touch the plant. But the one problem we have is the bamboo, because with the bamboo it has this papery layer to it which falls off and it looks really soft and attractive and velvety but it’s full of tiny micro fibers that create a rash, especially on children’s skin and kids tend to take it and make hats out of it and then half an hour later their whole face is red and the parents come screaming saying; ‘What happened to my child!’

R: That’s actually what happened to my parents because they were working with, in Dutch its called Berenklauw, it is a really high green plant and if you touch it, you’ll get blisters. Because my mums an artist and she was working with those dried plants, and my dad studied biology so he just goes wild about these things, anyway don’t know why he didn’t know that, and they like took loads of these things home and their arms were just full of blisters.

C: Oh no.

T: The plant you were talking about is…

R: It’s a high green plant with really big leaves.

T: The stork has these hairs and, and if you touch you will get this kind of big blister or rash.

T: (Tymon showing Cassandra list of forbidden/invasive species) This is the Dutch name, these are the Latin names and those are the plants that are since the 2nd of August 2017 were added to the forbidden species.

C: I can show you where some Pennisetum setaceum is in the garden.

T: It would be really interesting if we could…

C: Manlio… Manlio! (Talking in Italian to each other, Manlio joined the conversation). Manlio is the curator of the garden and he is also the hotline for the children’s hospital when kids eat something that is toxic but he is also my husband. (Continue talking Italian to each other).

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They are doing a really interesting project because they have the list of plants that are forbidden by the European Union, and they are finding them in the botanical garden.

M: Ah, interesting.

R: So, we were wondering whether you might recognize one of these?

C: And she was telling me what a horrible rash that her father got with Pennisetum setaceum, do you know it?

R: It’s this one.

M: It’s a terrible plant, but because of the climate it does not grow in Sicily. Need colder and not humidity.

T: But we were wondering if there…

M: Students di Manifesta… (Talking Italian to Cassandra) I have in my room... dry... (Talking Italian to Cassandra).

C: He has a piece of wood from this plant in his room if you guys want to see it, but it’s unfortunately not growing in the garden.

R: We’ve got the dried ones at home actually because my mum makes ladders from them but yeah, we can definitely go and have a look. But how about the other, because I’m quite curious if the other are in the garden actually?

C: Ehm, he knows every plant in the garden.

T: This is a type of weed, it is called Alligator Weed.

C: No, but Pennisetum setaceum yes. (Talking Italian to Manlio).

M: Give the list to Cassandra and then I see if in the garden, because right now I have to go to the director.

R: Yes of course, thank you very much.

T: Thank you.

C: Ehm, the only one that I recognize for sure is the Pennisetum setaceum T: This is eh… and this is…

C: Manlio said that if you send him the list, then he will send you back a reply.

T: That would be really nice. Because I think the list is even longer as this is the most recent update, so there are…

R: But if we look at the history like Cassandra just proposed we will probably find the rest.

C: Ah yes,

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“I mean it is interesting that they are prohibiting Pennisetum setaceum, is it really invasive because it is not dangerous in natural habitats. It only colonizes certain areas, (...) a lot of these plants are pioneers. You can call it invasive species, but if you want to be positive about their capacity to come into disturbed areas then a more correct word for them is pioneer species.”

Because even in nature when there is a fire, they are the first species to come in to start break up the soil and adapt to the climate to the next species until you come to the climax forest because it’s a whole evolution. But you in urban areas, urban areas are maintained as disturbed basically right, ehm and so they’ll continue to grow there because they’re just trying to do their job.

R: But would you then specifically say that this one isn’t invasive or would we actually call these so called invasive plants, pioneers?

T: I think the definition or meaning of the word invasive is questionable.

T: I think the definition or meaning of the word invasive is questionable.

C: Right, ehm I would call them pioneer species because I like to be a pragmatist about these kinds of issues and ehm I’m really interested, I’m sort of a interdisciplinary scholar and interested in environmental humanities. I think there is a journal called environmental humanities and there is the Rachel Carsons center in Munich and they both study exactly these questions. Not just botany but how our worldviews influence things, how we are working in the world with environmental issues like do

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we call plants pioneers or do we call them invasive species and where culturally, historically and philosophically does this choice come from? Which goes back to what you were saying about gardeners right because

“... gardens are the image of nature and of ourselves what we want to see so in a different period, the image, because nature was scary in a moment when you’re in the medieval ages, then the image that you want to see is a nature that is not scary but controlled” whereas during the industrial revolution you’re starting to feel like industrialism and machines and cities are scary but you want to see the beautiful nature that you have lost so you recreate that even though it is just as artificial as the geometric perfectly ordered nature which we created before. And what is interesting now is that there are landscape horticultural artists like Gilles Clement of the High Line, where we are starting to break out of this mentality of native and non-native to spontaneous. We want to see regenerating nature because we are starting to be afraid that nature cannot regenerate itself.

T: That is really interesting because I think we didn’t read it completely yet, but we tried to translate French parts from Gilles Clement and I think he in one part of the book he tries to state that we could see the planet earth as one big garden and how could it even be possible that there are invasive plants in one garden.

C: I mean it depends, I think it really has to be pragmatic. The plants tend to be, I don’t want to say more intelligent, but invasive in the plant world tend to be… I think plants are more cooperative than animals are and that has been proven by forestry scientists in America and botanist like Stefano Mancuso in Italy. Whereas an invasive species, like the Florida turtle, we know that If it gets into the ecosystem that it might take the niche of The Forbidden Urpflanze

the native turtle, and so we try really hard to not let it out. That we accept the Florida turtle in the botanical garden so that we keep it in an artificial environment and not let it out into the nature reserves because people buy these little turtles for their children and then they become huge and then they set them free because they don’t want them anymore. So, we say set them free here in an artificial environment and not in an environment that is close to nature. We are part of nature, and as part of nature, we pollute or cut down forests and replant them with different species, so you know everything is altered. I am not always in favor of exotic species, sometimes there are places where it is important to keep exotic species out. You have to be intelligent about it, you have to be an expert and have the toolset to look at the ecological system that you are dealing with and try to not reflect your moralistic world views in to how you’re dealing with the world but act as engineer. You have to put the whole equation together before you make the decision.

Whereas both environmentalist or people who are politically, commercially minded tend to take a political stance, a priority of what is actually happening. Which is something I am particularly critical of because I am an American and that is a huge problem for us. The fact that global warming has become a political issue and its tied to the left and rejected by the right is just mind-blowing for me, but yes, any other questions.

T: Yes, maybe because we are trying to find a possibility for a new archetype of the botanical garden what would you consider as the current definition of botanical garden? What should a botanical garden include to be a botanical garden?

C: Well, there is an official definition that I believe, I will send you the link, but it more or less says that a botanical garden has a collection of plants that are organized according to a system. And gardens and different parts of the garden have different systems. But more importantly is that the plants are scientifically identified and cataloged. From that the botanical garden serve different purposes, including research conservation, public education, enjoyment, maintaining population of plants which are in danger. But the basic definition is that they have a system, they are not just aesthetic, there is some sort of scientific criteria that orders them.

R: But ordered by mankind, right?

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C: Yes of course. And so, this garden is special I think because of any other botanical garden I have worked with, and I have worked with several botanical gardens in California and ehm the in Edinburgh and in Pisa as well…

R: The first one?

C: The first one was in Padua.

R: Really?

C: That one is also very old.

T: I think the source we found stated Pisa R: Pisa was the first one but I think there is a discussion going on, on the internet about who is the first one.

People say it is Pisa but apparently, it is Padua. It is good that you say this because now we know for sure. They all were created around the same year.

C: Right, in terms of these debates which I really don’t pay much attention to who was first. If you are one of the first then it is fine. In any case, this is the garden that has the most systems in the garden which is tied to the different developmental moments of the garden.

Because you have the Linnaean system which evolves around modern taxonomy and then the Engler system which was the next big breakthrough in taxonomy where you’re going from instant paying attention to the visible parts of the organism. You’re paying attention to the kinship levels and so even though a lot of the families remains the same there are still a lot of plants that have their authors still Linnaeus. The idea behind the system is different and it is really visible in the two layouts because if you’re walking through the Engler section, you are really walking up the family tree of genetics. And then the other different little sections in the garden are geographical or ecological and they are the most modern systems. And most botanical gardens today, the systems which you see are either regional or geographical or they are representing different habitats.

T: Isn’t there an even more technological way of ordering them based on their DNA for example?

C: Well, that is the big revolution which is happening right now in botanical taxonomy, in systematics is that Englers family tree is being blasted apart by genome sequencing and we are finding out that some plants of which we thought we one family are actually a different family or their own family for example Angeles have been put in the lily family, you know if you look at Angeles and

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lilies they shouldn’t go together at all, so that could be one system that you guys could look at.

R: Well we were actually looking at a new system.

C: Right, that is what your project should be; a new system.

T: I think we want to take all the forbidden plants that have been forbidden by the European Union and work with those plants and then we were thinking of coming up with a new taxonomy and putting all of those plants in a catalogue and then make it into a new botanical garden if we require all the right information.

C: But, you both come from an architecture background, right?

T: Yes. C: So, why don’t you choose a system that goes with your own expertise? The architecture of plants is a field. It a real field, so you could make an architectural system. And so, when you’re looking at different plants think about engineering systems. Mostly they are hydraulic systems and their weight bearing system and then their system of keeping up their energy from the energy balance.

R: That’s a really good idea actually.

T: This isn’t architectural but, we found a quote by Goethe while he was walking here in the garden and he was looking for the Urpflanze.

C: He was in the other garden though, he wasn’t in the botanical garden. He was in Villa Guilia.

T: That is good to know, because the quote was from 1797, so the garden was already finished for two years I think.

C: Are you sure? It opened in 1795 but most of the quotes that I know by Goethe about the earth plant were written before then. He was watching the garden being constructed. I actually have here some abandoned work books from a children’s laboratory that I did on the earth plant that I can give you. But yes 1787 should be the date I think.

R: Because you do work with a lot of drawing don’t you?

C: Yes, in fact if you’re here on Saturday are little drawing group is going to make drawing fragments on Saturday morning if you want to come by? We have a botanist come in and give us an introduction and then we draw.

R: And why do you do it that way?

C: We do it that way because drawing is a way of slowing

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people down and it is really easy because a lot of people don’t have firsthand interaction with plants especially in a city like Palermo. They tend to see plants as a blob and not as a plant and it is not important. Even though they want to give it importance. So, a lot of the discourse around the plant world is fairly naïve and in generalized and full of clichés. And so, drawing helps you to weed out and get rid of the clichés and understand what you’re actually looking at and talking about. And one of the biggest problems which we have right now with the environment is exactly what I was saying before is how it is being politicalized and so I started this drawing group hoping that people would come that were neither artist nor botanist but just part of the general population and that it would be a capillary system to prove plant culture in Palermo and that people are more aware of the world around them and the fact that they are part of it.

R: So, how long have you been organizing this for?

C: No, I just started, this is the second session. I have done these classes since 2008 in middle schools, laboratories for special events that were just one day with the same methodology of pairing up with a botanist and teaching botany and drawing at the same time as a way to sensitize a certain population whether it is a school or talking about their school garden or here in the botanical garden, but this is the first time I have done it as an adult class that has a much longer time frame. So, I am really excited. And so, I think most of the quotes here are from Goethe’s travels through Italy where he is talking about the earth plant.

T: We were also thinking that the drawing is a very good way to communicate your findings and especially within architecture practice we do a lot of drawings. So, for our presentation we were also thinking of how can we draw findings because we are developing this kind of narrative on how the garden changed through the years and how we perceive a conceptual approach to forbidden gardens.

C: If both of you are French speakers, there is a botanist whose name is Hallé and he writes these great books, let me look him up on the computer, about the architecture of trees in the rainforest. And he does these really crazy drawings and every tree he looks at he tries to figure out their architecture. He said the only tree he can’t figure out is the tea tree. And I have been trying to figure out why he can’t figure the tea tree.

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T: This one is by Pierre Jean François.

C: Right, this is an Irish woman, you should look her work up on the internet. And then this is from an American writer who wrote a book on living locally for a year and she drew this an example of all the seasons of eating from your own garden; this is what you get from plants. And he sees how, in her book she lyrically ties in how in spring you eat leaves and then shoots and at the end you eat the big ripe fruit. And so, eating locally you develop with the plants. You become a plant.

C: These are part of his atlas of poetic botany. A bit more creative, but his scientific work has these really more like distinct stick figure drawings to study how the weight is distributed.

T: This is super interesting.

C: He was famous for being the first one to study the rainforest canopy from on top of it instead of underneath.

C: One is I’m thinking of him and then the other work is Bell’s book. Yeah, by Adrian Bell. Adrian Bell is a horticulturist and so the big criticism which we have about his book is that he only talks about angiosperms.

He leaves of a whole branch of plants…

T: Is he not interested or does he think that they are not part of the system?

C: I think he is not interested because in general the horticulture department is tied to the agricultural department and so the agricultural department is more interested flowering and fruit bearing plants. But his drawings are really nice. Plant Form by Adrian Bell.

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DISPLACED GARDENS

ORGANIC SYSTEM, HOLISTIC VIEW Tommaso La Mantia

farmer and professor Via Nave, Palermo, 38° 6’16.07”N / 13°19’22.55”E

We visited La Mantia’s farm and his friend’s farm “the Wellness Garden” on 25th April, 2018. The farms locate at the western extension direction of Corso Calatafimi, where most of the historical qanats were built (Piana di Mezzomonreale).

The following is an extraction of the interview, all are narration of Tommaso.

About Ciaculli Actually, the last orchard is in Ciaculli. I don’t know whether you know Ciaculli. It is part of the Conca d’Oro. It is important because in Ciaculli there is a large amount of sufficient orchrads in the Conca d’Oro. And this is famous because in Ciaculli, variant mandarins are cultivated there, and then selected in the Conca d’Oro valley. In this part of Conca d’Oro (where La Mantia’s orchard is), only a few orchards remain. The place is the most important not because I live here, but because it is an island of orchards with houses around.

The place is the most important not because I live here, but because it is an island of orchards with houses around.

About gardened species In the past, this area was mixed with trees, loquats, mandarins, lemons and oranges. But in the last time (1870s) the people cut the loquats. Because they were expensive for cultivation, and people prefer citrus as it is easier to cultivate.

the water from the spring to the city. Qanats are a very nice idea because they are possible to move water from the spring to the centre without evaporation, without contamination. Because it (water) is moved under the soil.

Qanats are a very nice idea because they are possible to move water from the spring to the centre without evaporation, without contamination.

We use the tube system because it is possible to use fewer (less) water, and it is not necessary to manage the soil (less labour work). And then the time for irrigation is less, of course.

Another reason is that water is not obtained from the well, but arrives from the spring or the lake. So every farm, for example, waters one hour a week. It is not possible to collect water and distribute it by the modern mechanical system here. This is an intermediate systerm between the old and modern.

An organic farming system

The idea is to have a complex ecosystem.

Here in my friend’s farm, you see a house for insects. This is made of different materials to be suitable for different types of insects, the insects eat those spiecies that cause damage to the vegetables. The idea is to have a complex eco system.

Traditional and modern irrigation system These tubes (are modern techniques of irrigation). The old way is without tubes, by changeing and removement of the soil.

Here you see a traditional gebbia. It can store rainwater and cultivate fish. There are also birds living near the water, and frogs... .

The qanats are under the soil, and they are used to move

And there are layers of planting system. For the second layer of the planting system, you see tomatoes, beams,

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etc. The first layer is the vegetables. The third is citrus trees, loquats, etc.

After the interview, we received an email from Tommaso in which he stressed the importance of terms or glossaries describing those irrigation system.

From the email Palermo is a strange city. It supports a beautiful reality as “manifesta� but then forgets to have (still for a short time!) the gardens that have made Palermo famous.

Palermo is rightly happy to have an important ArabNorman heritage but it does not do anything to save the only aspect of culture and language that has been alive since then: the language linked to irrigation!

Nobody during the water crisis has ever mentioned the gardens!

Palermo is rightly happy to have an important ArabNorman heritage but it does not do anything to save the only aspect of culture and language that has been alive since then: the language linked to irrigation!

It is from this quote that we get the inspiration to include an agriculture glossary to remind people who come across this little booklet about the language and words, because of which the culture is identified.

RIGHT: A HOUSE FOR INSECTS

This is made of different materials to be suitable for different types of insects, the insects eat those spiecies that cause damage to the vegetables. The idea is to have a complex eco system.

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THE ROOTS OF PLANT INTELLIGENCE Stefano Mancuso

researcher TED talk, jul. 2010, watched 01 dec. 2017

“Sometimes I go browsing [through] a very old magazine. I found this observation test about the story of the ark. And the artist that drew this observation test did some errors, had some mistakes -- there are more or less 12 mistakes.

Some of them are very easy. There is a funnel, an aerial part, a lamp and clockwork key on the ark.

Some of them are about the animals, the number.

But there is a much more fundamental mistake in the overall story of the ark that’s not reported here. And this problem is: where are the plants?

So now we have God that is going to submerge Earth permanently or at least for a very long period, and no one is taking care of plants. Noah needed to take two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal, of every kind of creature that moves, but no mention about plants. Why? In another part of the same story, all the living creatures are just the living creatures that came out from the ark, so birds, livestock and wild animals. Plants are not living creatures -- this is the point. That is a point that is not coming out from the Bible, but it’s something that really accompanied humanity.

Let’s have a look at this nice code that is coming from a Renaissance book. Here we have the description of the order of nature. It’s a nice description because it’s starting from left -- you have the stones -- immediately after the stones, the plants that are just able to live. We have the animals that are able to live and to sense, and on the top of the pyramid, there is the man. This is not the common man. The “Homo studiosus” -- the studying man. This is quite comforting for people like me -- I’m a professor -- this to be over there on the top of creation.

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But it’s something completely wrong. You know very well about professors. But it’s also wrong about plants, because plants are not just able to live; they are able to sense. They are much more sophisticated in sensing than animals.

“But it’s also wrong about plants, because plants are not just able to live; they are able to sense.”

Just to give you an example, every single root apex is able to detect and to monitor concurrently and continuously at least 15 different chemical and physical parameters. And they also are able to show and to exhibit such a wonderful and complex behavior that can be described just with the term of intelligence.

Well, but this is something -- this underestimation of plants is something that is always with us.

Let’s have a look at this short movie now.

We have David Attenborough. Now David Attenborough is really a plant lover; he did some of the most beautiful movies about plant behavior. Now, when he speaks about plants, everything is correct. When he speaks about animals, [he] tends to remove the fact that plants exist. The blue whale, the biggest creature that exists on the planet -- that is wrong, completely wrong. The blue whale, it’s a dwarf if compared with the real biggest creature that exists on the planet -- that is, this wonderful, magnificent 77

Okay, some of the movements of the plants are very well-known. This is a very fast movement.

This is a Dionaea, a Venus fly trap hunting snails -- sorry for the snail. This has been something that has been refused for centuries, despite the evidence. No one can say that the plants were able to eat an animal, because it was against the order of nature. But plants are also able to show a lot of movement. Some of them are very well known, like the flowering. It’s just a question to use some techniques like the time lapse. Some of them are much more sophisticated. Look at this young bean that is moving to catch the light every time. And it’s really so graceful; it’s like a dancing angel. They are also able to play -- they are really playing. These are young sunflowers, and what they are doing cannot be described with any other terms than playing.

They are training themselves, as many young animals do, to the adult life where they will be called to track the sun all the day. They are able to respond to gravity, of course, so the shoots are growing against the vector of gravity and the roots toward the vector of gravity. But they are also able to sleep. This is one, Mimosa pudica. So during the night, they curl the leaves and reduce the movement, and during the day, you have the opening of the leaves -- there is much more movement. This is interesting because this sleeping machinery, it’s perfectly conserved. It’s the same in plants, in insects and in animals. And so if you need to study this sleeping problem, it’s easy to study on plants, for example, than in animals and it’s much more easy even ethically. It’s a kind of vegetarian experimentation.

Sequoiadendron giganteum. (Applause)

“When he speaks about animals, [he] tends to remove the fact that plants exist.

The blue whale, the biggest creature that exists on the planet -- that is wrong, completely wrong.

The blue whale, it’s a dwarf if compared with the real biggest creature that exists on the planet -- that is, this wonderful, magnificent Sequoiadendron giganteum.”

And this is a living organism that has a mass of at least 2,000 tons. Now, the story that plants are some low-level organisms has been formalized many times ago by Aristotle, that in “De Anima” -- that is a very influential book for the Western civilization -- wrote that the plants are on the edge between living and not living. They have just a kind of very low-level soul. It’s called the vegetative soul, because they lack movement, and so they don’t need to sense. Let’s see.

Plants are even able to communicate -- they

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are extraordinary communicators. They communicate with other plants.

“Plants are even able to communicate -they are extraordinary communicators.”

They are able to distinguish kin and nonkin. They communicate with plants of other species and they communicate with animals by producing chemical volatiles, for example, during the pollination. Now with the pollination, it’s a very serious issue for plants, because they move the pollen from one flower to the other, yet they cannot move from one flower to the other. So they need a vector -- and this vector, it’s normally an animal. Many insects have been used by plants as vectors for the transport of the pollination, but not just insects; even birds, reptiles, and mammals like bats rats are normally used for the transportation of the pollen. This is a serious business. We have the plants that are giving to the animals a kind of sweet substance -- very energizing -- having in change this transportation of the pollen. But some plants are manipulating animals, like in the case of orchids that promise sex and nectar and give in change nothing for the transportation of the pollen.

Now, there is a big problem behind all this behavior that we have seen. How is it possible to do this without a brain? We need to wait until 1880, when this big man, Charles Darwin, publishes a wonderful, astonishing book that starts a revolution. The title is “The Power of

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Movement in Plants.” No one was allowed to speak about movement in plants before Charles Darwin. In his book, assisted by his son, Francis -- who was the first professor of plant physiology in the world, in Cambridge -- they took into consideration every single movement for 500 pages. And in the last paragraph of the book, it’s a kind of stylistic mark, because normally Charles Darwin stored, in the last paragraph of a book, the most important message. He wrote that, “It’s hardly an exaggeration to say that the tip of the radical acts like the brain of one of the lower animals.” This is not a metaphor. He wrote some very interesting letters to one of his friends who was J.D. Hooker, or at that time, president of the Royal Society, so the maximum scientific authority in Britain speaking about the brain in the plants.

Now, this is a root apex growing against a slope.

So you can recognize this kind of movement, the same movement that worms, snakes and every animal that are moving on the ground without legs is able to display. And it’s not an easy movement because, to have this kind of movement, you need to move different regions of the root and to synchronize these different regions without having a brain. So we studied the root apex and we found that there is a specific region that is here, depicted in blue -- that is called the “transition zone.” And this region, it’s a very small region -- it’s less than one millimeter. And in this small region you have the highest consumption of oxygen in the plants and more important, you have these kinds of signals here. The signals that you are seeing here are action potential, are the same signals that the neurons of my brain, of our brain, use to

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exchange information. Now we know that a root apex has just a few hundred cells that show this kind of feature, but we know how big the root apparatus of a small plant, like a plant of rye. We have almost 14 million roots. We have 11 and a half million root apex and a total length of 600 or more kilometers and a very high surface area.

Now let’s imagine that each single root apex is working in network with all the others. Here were have on the left, the Internet and on the right, the root apparatus. They work in the same way. They are a network of small computing machines, working in networks. And why are they so similar? Because they evolved for the same reason: to survive predation. They work in the same way. So you can remove 90 percent of the root apparatus and the plants [continue] to work. You can remove 90 percent of the Internet and it is [continuing] to work. So, a suggestion for the people working with networks: plants are able to give you good suggestions about how to evolve networks.

And another possibility is a technological possibility. Let’s imagine that we can build robots and robots that are inspired by plants.

Until now, the man was inspired just by man or the animals in producing a robot. We have the animaloid -- and the normal robots inspired by animals, insectoid, so on. We have the androids that are inspired by man. But why have we not any plantoid? Well, if you want to fly, it’s good that you look at birds -- to be inspired by birds.

But if you want to explore soils, or if you want to colonize new territory, to best thing that you can do is to be inspired by plants that are masters in doing this. We have another possibility we

are working [on] in our lab, [which] is to build hybrids. It’s much more easy to build hybrids.

“But if you want to explore soils, or if you want to colonize new territory, to best thing that you can do is to be inspired by plants that are masters in doing this.”

Hybrid means it’s something that’s half living and half machine. It’s much more easy to work with plants than with animals. They have computing power, they have electrical signals.

The connection with the machine is much more easy, much more even ethically possible. And these are three possibilities that we are working on to build hybrids, driven by algae or by the leaves at the end, by the most, most powerful parts of the plants, by the roots.

Well, thank you for your attention. And before I finish, I would like to reassure that no snails were harmed in making this presentation. Thank you.

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COLONIALISM TEATRO GARIBALDI Uriel Orlow

artist via Teatro Garibaldi, 46-56, Palermo, 30 nov. 2017

(Earlier during the artist meet-up) SN: [On language and renaming as violence] UO: That is an interesting question. I think language is the way we relate to the world and to each other, how we organize the world and our relationship to it. So I think it’s really important to think about what things are called, who names them, who has the power to name them, and which names are used, which names are not used. And in this case the colonial context, the name giving is an act of epistemic violence, a kind of violence in the knowledge systems, through knowledge systems. Where you could control the knowledge and the world you have access to, and introduce a language that is not spoken anywhere in the world, the Latin. That

“And in this case the colonial context, the name giving is an act of epistemic violence, a kind of violence in the knowledge systems, through knowledge systems.

Where you could control the knowledge and the world you have access to, and introduce a language that is not spoken anywhere in the world, the Latin.”

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only people from higher classes have access to, that only people who have access to education, who come from certain countries. That is precisely why it is interesting to me, because this study of violence is something that continues, it is still there, because the botanical garden in Cape Town has decided to keep those names […]. I have spoken to a lot of botanists at the botanical garden, they all use the Latin names […] particular system of knowledge, so that is what everyone uses.

SN: Thank you so much for your time, it’s been a long day…So, to introduce myself real quick: I am a student from the TU Delft, I’m conducting this research in the context of my Architecture studio, because I am an Architecture student.

So I am actually not really an artist, or…and it’s a research studio, so not necessarily a design studio.

UO: No. Okay.

SN: So I was…as you were explaining your method of researching earlier, I was really struck by the specifics of the sites. And kind of coincidentally, I came to the site of the Orto Botanico. There I was struck by the order in the Linnaean section…

UO: Of the Orto Botanico?

SN: Yeah, of the Orto Botanico, that formal ordering. And then I began researching and thinking…so the Linnaean section, as you know, has this root in the Enlightenment, which is the ordering of the world, the naming and the conquering of the world, predecessor of the colonial.

UO: Yeah.

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in the process of…they actually do not know how to deal with this. Those plants are old, they have a history, but they have taken over more than what was allowed to them, in that act of violence of placing them into a new position. So the mediation is lost between plant and human.

I would want to know your perspective on how to restore the communication between plant and man.

SN: And, I was thinking that to address certain topics which are not only Palermitan, but also in a broader perspective, the world…most of all the topic of displacement, which is also found in that Linnaean section. The finding of root, being taken away from your own root…naming and de-naming, to depersonalize the whole situation and not to make it an aggressive political attack on what is happening here, but from a more… yeah, that’s why I take the approach of the postAnthropocene. The view from a plant. More literally, I want to film from this perspective, the view of a plant, the perspective on our world.

UO: Oh my god, that is a big question for the end of the day! I am supposed to give you all the answers. I don’t know.

UO: Okay.

SN: …a hunch? An intuitive approach, knowing this backstory?

SN: So that’s like the context.

UO: Okay.

SN: So…I already asked the quesiion of whether the bringing into order can be seen as an act of violence. And then there is also this other bringing into order…the monk Da Ucria, who designed the Linnaean section, who is also represented in the exhibition in the Gymnasium…I was told by another researcher, Cassandra Funsten, that while he designed this garden, or section, he actually ignored the natural understanding of plant co-existence.

He made them into…a sort of a botanical Wunderkammer, out of real islands of plants.

Which are not the first and not the last of the many violences committed against the plants, similar to the registration of migrants, making them stand in a row, taking pictures, taking them to an island without any context. Then there is this counter-violence of those plants, some of them growing into big specimen, taking over more than their own piece of ground. She said that the people of the Orto Botanico are now

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UO: How to…well, I mean…how about thinking about what the plants like? And how the plants feel? Because the Orto Botanico, I mean most botanical gardens are museums and archives, where the plants serve a particular purpose in a larger system. It is not considered in its own right, so what about thinking how the plant wants to live? Not necessarily who it’s related to, or what the system thinks it belongs to, but what it likes? If they would like more light? If they would like more water? Or shade?

“How about thinking about what the plants like? And how the plants feel?

SN: That is actually something that… in the Linnaean section, you would have some plants perhaps die because they are constantly in the shadow of a plant that overtook.

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UO: Exactly. I think the problem is that this thing is something that works on paper. But once you take it to an actual botanical garden structure, it produces a lot of violence, which is out of forcing plants to live next to other plants that they are not suited to. So I think to readdress this is to think about the plants’ needs.

SN: That is a beautiful way, also simple.

UO: I mean…I think a lot of these things are not necessarily very complicated. The trick is to think about what was lost on the way, and how can we communicate with that.

SN: Yeah. There is also this other thing that I have discovered…I have done a pre-research, but it was mostly really architectural, really… about trying to understand the order. And here I have encountered some sensitivities, which are really particular and interesting, for example the correlation between experimental gardens in the Orto Botanico and Villa Tasca, and other villas of the nobility. They collected the species that came here from abroad, to acclimatize and then be used in the city of Palermo. So a lot of those…a lot of the really old plants here in Palermo, really specific and meaningful plants, are actually related, clones from those gardens.

UO: That’s right.

SN: And that connection…the sort of…the bigger family…not really a family because there is no sexual reproduction, but the cloning is something that has fascinated me.

UO: It is very interesting. But I am not sure I am the right person, because I am not a specialist on Palermo yet, nor the Orto Botanico. I am just yet starting my research. So I think I am around the

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same stage as you, I am discovering these things, different meanings…

SN: No, I think…for me it’s interesting to have your input because you have been doing this type of research for years…

UO: Yes, but elsewhere and what I want to be careful about is that…I am not a botanist. So I am not a specialist and I usually am way... as I said in the talk, I am interested in the specificities. I can talk more about the context in South Africa than I can here, because I am still discovering. I am still doing the research.

I am very careful not to work like a scientist, that produces transferrable knowledge, where you have a precise and universal system. So what I have learned in South Africa, I don’t know if it is applicable here, some of these things. So I’m very careful to…to avoid making generalizations, or reducing. Which is how a scientist works, you find clues and then you deduce ‘it works like this or this’. Basically, as an artist I want to work for a different thing.

So…if you speak a botanist, they can speak to any botanical garden, because they operate according to the same scientific principles. But for me it are the differences that are interesting.

And actually, there is for example a huge difference between the botanical garden in Cape Town and the botanical garden here, in that the botanical garden of Cape Town was one of the first only indigenous botanical gardens. Which is very very rare. Usually botanical gardens are collections of exotic species, but because there was such a huge biodiversity of plants, they decided very early on to make a botanical garden that focused on indigenous plants. So, it has no European plants. And that is interesting again for historical and cultural reasons. So for

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Think about the specifics

me it’s really once you look into all these details that it becomes interesting. Once we look at the Linnaean section and what was happening, who was doing it, and when they were doing it, that it becomes interesting.

SN: Yeah, it is really about that whole context and then trying to understand the…and also the…metaphor of […] in Palermo, that you would see in the Linnaean section…yeah there are many parallels that I have found on my way, just in investigating that little piece of land.

UO: That is super interesting. I would like to find out more. You should keep me posted.

SN: I will!

“So I’m very careful to…to avoid making generalizations, or reducing. Which is how a scientist works, you find clues and then you deduce ‘it works like this or this’. Basically, as an artist I want to work for a different thing.”

Notes: How does the plant citizen want to live?

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Politics of Water

A FAMILY FARM IN PALERMO Santo Pace

farmer Via Falsomiele, Palermo, 38° 4’25.74”N / 13°22’15.05”E

most important reason about using new tubes.

On 28th April 2018, we were invited to Santo Pace’s farm to talk with the family and listen to their stories of using different irrigation systems.

The family has already cultivated in Conca d’Oro for more than a thousand years. Walking into their house, one can see the old Pace, who was Santo Pace’s grand-grand father, in his typical farmer-style portrait took at the time when photograph became a fashion.

We talked about the old objects stored in their farm. Most of them are within a hundred years. However, seeing these reminds us of those pictures from an encyclopedia, depicting the Second Industrial Revolution as well as exerting an imagined rusty smell on readers’ mind. Here we select some typical elements to show how the ArabNorman traces are preserved and progressed.

The artificial lake A big lake, that is the lake of Piana. The artificial lake was made to produce electricity. It was built from 1920 to 1923 by hand. The output water jump 475 m lower until the “Casuzze” hydro-electrical plant near Palermo. In the sixties, to supply the increased demand of electricity, a newer plant just near the dam was built. The plant of “Casuzze” is still in function.

From this lake, obviously arrive a lot of water in this zone, also Santa Ri Jesu, and also to Ciaculli, with the special canal that collect the water…

We thank our translator Flavio Scarlata for the help.

The following paragraphs are narratives by Santo: The well The system has 300 years history. The water comes from a tower which was activated by a machine.

So for example, the old well that take the water stop to be used because this big lake that helps…

The weather Palermo doesn’t have a lot of rain water, it rains maybe 20 days a year.

Three holes represents different The frequency of irrigation dimension of the water. From That kind of soil is full of stones, you have to give the water about once 12 days. Because the soil contains a lot the biggest runs about 18 L/s. of stone, so you have to give a lot of water because it can The middle one is a half 9L/s. not preserve water well and becomes dry easily.

The third is about 4 L/s. From Advantages of cultivating orchards in this area This is an important thing this zone is famous also the well water is divided and sold by hours. Price is different because there are other incredible oranges and mandarins. for different holes.

Why, this zone you have to give a lot of water because soil Replacement of irrigation systems The most ancient one was used 300 years ago. And the contains a lot of stone cannot last time that we use the orange tube is 30 to 40 years ago. (The plastic tube) Is better, also in economical way, reserve water for a long time. because you can use less water, as the ( orange) tube is bigger, so the plastic one can save water. This is also the Politics of Water

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And that’s why the mandarins taste sweeter here at the slopes on the mountain. If you go down to the plain, there is more water in soil. The trees of mandarins take the water, and the sweetness of the mandarin is like being washed from the water, so the fruit is not so sweet.

However, in this zone, you don’t have a lot of water, the mandarins can remain sweet taste.

Mechanical agriculture Because of the mountain area, you can’t use machine, because you can’t put machine here, the work is hard but the food is incredible.

Reflecting about what Santo Pace shared, at some points they echoed with what scholars have mentioned, for example, the difficulty of promoting mechanical farming at this area. It’s not only because of geomorphological features, but also about the landownership.

Furthermore, considering the orchards and their scale, which indicating they are form of human-intensive production and are of family-based economy, it makes sense that why the traditional system and its derivative facilities still remain in a close relationship between human beings and machines.

RIGHT: A SWITCH TO CONTROL THE DIRECTION OF WATER A modern substitution of traditional stone slab to control the direction of water in saja (channel). The object is more than one hundred years old.

By turning 90 degrees, one can manage water flows.

The material implies the modern time (iron), but essence of the way to control water still requires human intervention.

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photo credits Š All rights reserved Santo Eduardo Di Miceli page 16 Maurizio Carta pages 18, 52 Delfino Sisto Legnani page 24

CP