Consumption Linee _a tribute to Piero Manzoni is the site specific art piece that we have created for the Socle du Monde Art Festival which concpet has been developed by Tijs Visser at HEART Museum in Herning, Denmark.

Curated by Simon Njami

Without solution of continuity, a Line, wrote Manzoni, “does not measure metres . . but is zero, not zero as an end, but as the beginning of an infinite series”.

Lines of Infinite length do not measure time or distance, but represent endless duration and limitless extension. If there is anything today that we can define as infinite, it would be the trash generated by human beings. Consumption Linee aims to symbolise this infinite, continuous and unbridled consumption in which we find ourselves.  The recovery and reuse of the polystyrene (flamingo in Danish) that, generally, protects the most precious goods during their transport, is the starting point of a work that reflects on global supply chains, but also on daily acts of consumption and the links that are established between them.

We are part of the *DO IT! Upcycle* together with other artist such as Sui Park, Jean Tinguely and Arman, Cesar, Christo, Daniel Spoerri, Francois Dufrene, Gérard Deschamps, Jacques Villeglé, Martial Raysse, Niki de Saint Phalle, Raimond Hains, Yves Klein, Marcel Duchamp.

Scion is the beginning of an investigation into the forms of production of the plant species with which we cohabit in our most intimate environments, in our homes, but also into the forms of care, of exchange, of relationship… that unite and unite us, the human caretakers, with our plants. Enhancing these multi-species relationships that go unnoticed could be the pillars of a change in the relational paradigm in the city.

The research has been developed together with students of the Department of Visual Culture of the Technical University of Vienna during the seminar Plantare (PLANT + cARE) and other citizens of Vienna. The result and the work of the students can be seen in this magazine published specifically to accompany the installation.

Scion is part of the group exhibition Bordering Plants curated by Carmen Lael Hines, Roberto Majano and Adam Hudec for the Gallery of the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts and with exhibition design by Bilal Alame and Joanna Zabielska.

Boardering Plants will consider, through critical transdisciplinary work, how plants interrogate, affirm or question notions of the border. Interpreting borders not as a stagnant entity, but, to quote Brett Neilson and Sandro Mezzadra, as a ‘methodology’ and an ‘epistemic standpoint’ for thinking about ‘shaped’ and ‘re-shaped’ relationships, (…) of tension and conflict, partition and connection, traversal and barricade, life and death’. The border thus becomes not a fact, but a methodological perspective that suggests something binary, on various scales.

All our relationships with plants should be symbiotic, collaborative relationships, for our survival depends on theirs, and it is this sometimes invisible link that Scion reflects on. The project is an investigation into the forms of production of the plant species with which we cohabit in our most intimate environments, in our homes, but also into the forms of care, of exchange, of relationship, that unite and unite us, the human caretakers, with their plants.

The project aims to investigate and analyse the production systems of indoor or retail plant species, to understand their mode of production, times, forms, techniques, etc., as well as their subsequent distribution. To understand the systems of production and consumption, to make the invisible visible, to become aware of the global implications of everyday acts of consumption. Contrast these plants, which generally come from large greenhouses. These places are like production factories, spaces for the chain replication of living plant beings. Greenhouses currently do not sow but replicate species using agricultural techniques such as cuttings, which means that practically all the plants sold are genetically identical (clones), and therefore the majority of the population of a specific place can be caring for exactly the same plant. Human beings united through the care of the same plant species, invisible links of relationship that the project aims to visualise in order to promote these multi-species relationships that go unnoticed but which could be the pillars of a change in the relational paradigm in the city.

Fabulating a different world (curated by Blanca de la Torre) suggests that the climate crisis has placed us at a turning point where the old narratives inherited from a Cartesian paradigm force us to rethink the stories behind an ecocidal hegemonic system that has been revealed as unsustainable.

Aligning the exhibition proposal and the works included in it with this propositional tone, where the element of criticism serves to rethink the planet from the eco-dependence that leads us to the
construction of different alternatives and, ultimately, to a better place. Within this framework, Basurama proposes MADE IN as an exercise in personal reflection but framed on a global scale, represented by a map with a Fuller projection, Dymaxion, which separates us from the north-south dichotomy and places us in the imaginary of other possible futures. The map is built from reused cardboard boxes – with their memory, their origin, their design, their brands -, the quintessential symbol of transport on a global scale and a fundamental reference for understanding the framework of the global trade system. The addition of the participation of those attending the exhibition will allow us to draw patterns that identify the industrial centres of production on a global scale, as well as to visualise our individual consumption.

We will establish relationships between the local and the global, the first step towards raising awareness of the interrelation of our social models and environmental impacts.