Over 4,000 years ago, pre-Hispanic Mayans discovered that planting corn, beans and pumpkins together created a symbiotic system: the beans climbed the corn, the corn trapped nitrogen in the soil, the broad leaves of the pumpkin shaded the ground, retaining moisture. Still in use today, it has been called one of humanity’s most successful inventions. “I’ve always loved the idea behind it,” says José Délano, artist and director of The Vegetable Parliament, who has taken the logic of this ancient system and applied it to human society. “I thought this ecosystem was a beautiful metaphor for what we could be if we all worked in a reciprocal relationship with one another.”
The Vegetable Parliament puts humans on the same level as the vegetables, the insects, the soil
Délano’s summer-long, multi-scenario artist project begins in the open park of silent green, the former crematorium in Wedding, where a selection of Mexican-sourced vegetable seeds will be planted and encouraged to grow and weave around a conical wooden structure – designed both to support the plants and to create a space where all creatures exist together. “There’s no hierarchy here.” says Délano, “The Vegetable Parliament puts humans on the same level as the vegetables, the insects, the soil and the seeds.” Over the summer, as the crops mature, the garden will become the stage for a series of workshops and events, including a poetry festival, an opera currently being written by the Chilean writer Santiago Elordi and the German composer Nicholas Bussmann and culminating in a great banquet where all the produce will be consumed.
For decades, Délano has worked to take art beyond the gallery and reach new audiences. “A lot of gallery and museum art feels uninviting. You’re not supposed to touch anything, or you end up telling your kids to be quiet. This project is the opposite. You’re invited to climb, touch, hang out – even be loud.” The finished opera, performed by the Cottbusser Chor, will give agency to the growing vegetables. It won’t mention climate change explicitly, but it will describe what’s happening: “the heat, the fires, the water shortages, the monocultures”. Says Délano: “It speaks in simple language – not to deepen despair (the art world has done enough of that already), but to offer something more hopeful.”
Over in Prenzlauer Berg, ahead of the long-awaited reopening of the Prater Gallery, the renovation of the gatehouse of Ernst Thälmann Park has inspired the exhibition Ecosystems of Care, which through walks and installations reveals the unseen connections between people and their environment. “I wanted to highlight interspecies connections,” says Helena Doppelbauer, the curator. “Working here every day, you realise that the people in the surrounding DDR Plattenbau treat the park like their own garden: Raising money for the pond, looking after the herons, turtles and foxes.”
I thought this ecosystem was a beautiful metaphor
On the June 4, artist Marisa Benjamim will create an edible work of art for the neighbourhood, growing plant varieties that have a detoxifying effect on the human body and the soil. “But she’s been forced to make raised beds,” says Doppelbauer, “because the gas-fired power plant that used to be here contaminated the soil.” The artist, who often collaborates with biologists and gardeners, will show the important role local flora can play in decontaminating soil, passing on her research during workshops throughout the exhibition.
Like Délano, Doppelbauer wants the exhibition to counter the doom-laden narratives that shape how we currently talk about politics and the environment: “It’s easy to lose hope. But we need to make it possible for all species to live together.” That utopian idea of cohabitation is crucial to both projects. “Whether they know it or not, visitors to the park will be participating in a complex art project,” says Délano about The Vegetable Parliament. “We want to shake them out of their human-centric ideas, and maybe singing vegetables is the way to do it!”
