L’herbier de la mémoire

The exhibition The herbarium of memory: Laura De Bernardi, Gergana Mantscheva, Laura Sánchez Filomeno presents paintings, drawings, objects, and installations by three Swiss and international artists whose artistic practices are linked by a deeply introspective approach to personal and collective identity. Using real seeds and dried plant specimens as well as embroidered, hand-sewn, or painted plants and rhizomes, each of these artists interrogates the concept and epistemological significance of the “herbarium,” thereby proposing three different but complementary artistic statements about life and memory.

On the occasion of the exhibition The Herbarium of Memory At Espace Muraille, the works of Laura De Bernardi, Gergana Mantscheva and Laura Sánchez Filomeno are presented as if they were heterogeneous specimens borrowed from different herbaria with the aim of comparing and studying three geographically and culturally distinct, but nevertheless related, botanical collections.

Displayed across two levels of the 18th-century building that houses Espace Muraille, the physical proximity of the works allows visitors to study and experience them individually, but also in dialogue with one another, as well as with the historical substance of the gallery, which, for the exhibition, is symbolically transformed into an archival space. This dynamic activates a stimulating comparative approach and also generates inspiring new perspectives on the singular practices of the three artists. What are the intrinsic characteristics of each of the works on display and their creators? Is there a common thread running through the work and research of these three artists, despite their different contexts and backgrounds? How do they integrate (or exploit) a realistic or symbolic representation of nature into their poetic discourse? Beyond the obvious stylistic and material qualities that differentiate their individual approaches to the study of nature as their primary source of inspiration, the works of De Bernardi, Mantscheva, and Sánchez Filomeno can be interpreted together as a powerful visual atlas of emotional memories, both personal and collective.

Using a variety of artistic approaches and techniques—from traditional oil and acrylic painting to embroideries and ephemeral installations of textile and non-textile elements such as seeds and pollens—these three artists have built up their own impressive collections of “herbariums,” from which their extensive research on gesturalism, on the one hand, and cultural roots and memory, on the other, unfolds. Through a visual vocabulary that is both delicate and provocative, they explore complex questions of identity, rooted in a reflection that encompasses gender and geography, history and politics, autobiographical references, and the inclusion of different representations of otherness.

Exhibition curator: Valentina Locatelli