the heart is green

lucy cordes engelman and barbara rink

15 juni 2024 - 22 juni 2024

In ‘The Heart is Green’, artists Lucy Cordes Engelman and Barbara Rink present the first version of their research into plant immersion and eco-ecstatic creation methods at Bradwolff Projects. For this new collaboration, they immersed themselves in the plant life of Air Candide, a small allotment garden transformed into an art residency in Amsterdam, while exploring various artistic methods of embodied making. Influenced by plant consciousness, expanded sensory perception, and other interactions in the field, their artistic results are transformed and cast into new forms.

Since the Enlightenment, the view has prevailed in the West that the universe is essentially dead matter and that conscious life is reserved for humans. While that perspective is finally shifting, the artistic world has remained more reserved regarding interaction with the spiritual aspects of the natural world. Thinking and being with plants, combined with a search for the hidden esoteric life of the elements, renews an openness to the unknown aspects of our broader atmospheric cosmos in which plants play a central role. By linking the philosophical and material reality of plants to personal ecstatic experiences with plant consciousness, Cordes Engelman and Rink playfully explore the spiritual and physical possibilities of ecological consciousness.

Lucy Cordes Engelman is an American filmmaker, writer, performance and installation artist who has shown her work internationally on almost all continents. She is originally from Washington D.C. and currently lives in Amsterdam. Barbara Rink is a Dutch painter, based in Amsterdam, who works with an extensive form of painting through installation and photography. She has exhibited her work internationally and teaches at Academie Minerva. Both artists have a background in artistic research, and for this collaboration, they combine their respective artistic qualities to push their own boundaries and approach the process of plant immersion playfully.

Opening: Saturday, June 15, 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM