Växtvärk / Growing Pains
Catja Tonberg’s project Växtvärk / Growing pains is an investigation into the feminization of plants through cultural and scientific naming practices. In this work Tonberg questions how queering can create a shift in this status quo, and explores how we can think differently about these naming conventions and the implications of feminizing the non-human. With a special focus on queer enjoyment Tonberg is playing with the layering roles of these plant names. She looks for new ways of being with the names that have been accumulated continuously throughout the project.
Slide projectors facing each other mesh together images of plant bodies and human bodies into new images and a third body. Here the family album meets the plant archive in a moment of shifting, speaking of the implications that the name giver has made about the non-human and indirectly the human.
The performative drink experience with a banana drink called Musa Colada suggests new ways of coming together with the Musa (scientific name for the Banana Palm Tree, as well as the Swedish name for a Muse). Letting go of the concept of the Muse as a feminized source of inspiration for the male artist in a momentary shift and an encouragement of being differently with each other.
