Fr
Protean installation, work in progress since 2020.
Greenhouse, documentation space, grain library, transformation laboratory.
A[r]bor[e]tum is an artistic investigation into plant contraception and abortion.
Since time immemorial and in all civilizations, plants have been our allies: they heal us, nourish us, clothe us or warm us.
They are also used for their contraceptive or abortifacient virtues, by menstruating people and those producing spermatozoa. Plants can induce menstruation, promote contractions, prevent embryo implantation, inhibit sperm fertilization or generate reversible azoospermia*.
Starting with research based on the thesis Les plantes réputées abortives dans les pratiques traditionnelles d’avortement au Maroc, defended by Meryem El Fennouni, and on L’encyclopédie d’utovie: inventaire des plantes abortives, I chose to grow around thirty plants in greenhouses and horticultural leds, according to their climatic needs and the plurality of their therapeutic properties.
Multiform, collaborative and rhizomic, this project proposes :
>>> an automated GREENHOUSE, for growing seedlings, cuttings and plants at all latitudes.
>>> a LIBRARY
>>> a LABORATORY for processing plants grown in the greenhouse.
>>>a SEED LIBRARY
>>> a COLLECTION of RECIPES compiling traditional gynecological uses of contraceptive plants from around the world.
A[r]bor[e]tum proposes to emancipate ourselves from the all-powerful pharmaceutical lobbies, by reconnecting with our bodies and our ancestral knowledge. It’s an alternative to hormonal medicalization, an invitation to take our health into our own hands, to become more autonomous by rediscovering the power of plants.
This project is also a response to the many legislators who are attacking our right to bodily autonomy and wish to control our bodies, as in Alabama (2019), Poland (2020) and in 13 US states in 2022, when the US Supreme Court revoked the Roe vs Wade ruling, which had guaranteed the right to abortion in the USA since 1973.
A strategy of resistance to biopiracy** and an alternative to patenting everything, this project has been produced under a creative commons license, so that it can be reproduced by anyone who wishes to do so.
Many thanks to Monique Forestier & Fred Blondeau for their advice and generous contributions, and to the Occitanie region for its support of the project, under the heading of « Aide individuelle à la création ».
* Azoospermia: total absence of spermatozoa in the semen.
** Biopiracy: privatisation of living organisms and traditional knowledge of biodiversity, in particular through patents.
Many thanks to Monique Forestier & Fred Blondeau for their advice and generous contributions, and to the Occitanie region for its support for the project, under the heading of individual aid for creation.