The Artistic Research Research Group is collaborating with the Allard Pierson in the framework of its Hortus Medicus project - finding ways to bridge the reinterpretation of a 17th century garden with contemporary arts and relevant research discourses within the creative humanities. The Hortus Medicus was a 17th century medicinal garden that was used for study and educational purposes, which the Allard Pierson is reconstructing based on documents such as the Moninckx Atlas (featuring detailed descriptions of the area and its plantlife), opening possibilities for interdisciplinary research across archaeology, botany, art, history and pharmacy. In its current stage, actors involved with the project seek ways to engage contemporary interpretations of gardens and their functions in urban environments to aid in creating thought-provoking ways of engagement and opportunities for study within and outside university contexts. Through a one-day event inviting a variety of artistic researchers and curators from in and around Amsterdam to hold lectures and workshops, we intend to create a meaningful dialogue with the themes of this project and the Allard Pierson’s collection. In this context, we intend to look specifically at the ways in which theory and art practice combined can propel situated knowledges linking the garden as a site of curiosity and interaction to pressing ecological discourses on more-than human relations and their histories, urban development, and our present-day relations to gardens and plants as sites of healing.

Confirmed Speakers

• Els van der Plas, Director Allard Pierson
• Corina Apostol, curator and Assistant Professor of Social Practice in Contemporary Art and Culture, editor of Flora Fantastic: From Orchidelirium to Ecocritical Contemporary Art
• Leonie Brander, artist and author of Three Becomes Two Becomes One Becomes None
• Laurie Cluitmans, Curator of Contemporary Art at Centraal Museum Utrecht, editor of On the Necessity of Gardening: an ABC of Art, Botany and Cultivation
• Toni Kritzer, queer ecologist and artist researcher establishing a garden collective in Amsterdam
• De Onkruidenier, artist collective and ecosystem futurists

Organised by Colin Sterling, Assistant Professor of Heritage, Museums and the Environment, with support from Julia Stoll and Alexandra Chisholm

More speakers to be announced.

Full programme to follow soon.