It was meant to be like this. The bean plants, the easygoing monstera and the resilient ferns would grow for four months in the gallery’s basement and would disperse in the city at the end of Sebastian Moldovan’s exhibition. His garden-installation Shrine #6 spread around Bucharest this weekend as visitors were invited to pick a plant and take it home or replant it wherever they chose. 

With this simple act of giving and receiving, the work aimed to become an arena for discussing ways of reconnecting with nature and experiencing art, as any artwork is, at its core, an offering.

Shrine #6 encapsulates the artist’s fascination with the intricacies of biological systems and the interrelationship between humans and nature. 

”I like to learn by reproducing physical phenomena or natural systems. Usually my installations are made of found materials or mechanisms that have been discarded because I don’t like the waste of materials, knowing where they come from and where they end up. Living plants, more than anything else, need to continue their existence, to leave the exhibition and spread as they are used to do”, he said in an interview with Designist.ro.

The work’s title alludes to the Japanese shrines placed in forests – a practice fueled by the desire to live harmoniously with nature – or to the way many spiritual traditions revere plants.

Sebastian Moldovan has been introducing plants in his exhibition spaces since 2007, but this was the first time that he had the opportunity to grow a garden on site for more than the usual ten days. Nourished by water, artificial light and ventilation for almost two months before the exhibition opening, and for two more months during Spacetime’s a Wastin’, the garden thrived in an improbable environment. 

VIDEO: Watch how the plants grew in the gallery’s basement

The project Spacetime’s a Wastin’ is co-financed by Bucharest Municipality through ARCUB as part of the program București – Oraș deschis 2021. 

The content of this webpage does not necessarily reflect the official position of Bucharest Municipality or ARCUB.