Botanizing the Asphalt

Artists: Ana Vaz, Alexandre Estrela, Anna Schachinger, Haig Aivazian, Hugo de Almeida Pinho, Jonathan Uliel Saldanha, Marjolijn Dijkman, Pedro Henriques, Younes Ben Slimane

Curated by Sara Castelo Branco

The exhibition project Botanizing the Asphalt explores the political role of light in urban spaces at night. Examining the materiality of night and its sensorial, normative, and atmospheric aspects, the potential of the nocturnal as a community meeting space unfolds against the backdrop of pressing social, ecological, and political contexts. The title of the exhibition is inspired by Walter Benjamin’s description (1938) of how the flâneur experiences the city emotionally while wandering the streets, using an allegorical connection to nature. In this manner, the show traces dreamlike forms of meditation on resistance, memory, identity, and place – and thereby opens a broader discourse on the power dynamics embedded in light and dark, visibility and obscurity, the observer and observed.


With the support of DGARTES and Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation as well as Mondriian Fund.