PLANT STORIES #1 Transformation Dinner
Conceived by Bethan Hughes, with contributions from Anguezomo Nzé Mboulou Mba Bikoro, Bethan Hughes, Bilge Emine Arslan, Ece Eldek, Fetewei Tarekegn, Galo E. Rivera, Tang Han, Leslie García, Sina Ribak, T. Rudzinskaitė Memorial Amateur Lichenologists Society (Sumugan Sivanesan and Tessa Zettel), Tlayolan, Umut Azad Akkel.
In their journeys through geographies and epochs, plants repeatedly undergo changes as they interact with the practices of care, exploitation, and rituals created by humans. From food to symbol, from medicine to ornament, from weed to weapon—human understanding of and relationships with plants are in a state of constant flux. Beyond human imagination, however, plants also follow their own paths of transformation, which remain unrecognizable to us.
To celebrate the opening of the event series, PLANT STORIES begins with a communal gathering in the form of a dinner party: spread across various rooms of the ZK/U, diverse interventions by artists, researchers, filmmakers, gardeners, and musicians each offer a different reflection on the transformation of plants. With plants as political agitators or symbols of resistance, musical companions or nutritious life-givers, we invite you to share food, space, and stories with us and embark on a journey of plant transformation together.
Dinner planning and preparation: Eliza Chojnacka
Foto credit Hanif Shoaei
PLANT STORIES #3
Grapes, Land, and Resistance: Letter-Based Dialogue
Medium: Textil, Soil, Text, Plant, Ceramic, Photography.
As part of her long-term project Grapes, Land, and Resistance, artist Bilge Emine Arslan has initiated a correspondence be- tween her aunt Hatice Sönmez from the village of Çolaklar in southeastern Turkey and Gülistan Yılmaz, who belongs to a community garden group in Berlin. In connection with mem- ories of ancestors and research in family archives, the project reflects on the role of women who preserve rural knowledge through everyday practices. The correspondence between Hat- ice Sönmez and Gülistan Yılmaz opens up a poetic space for their exchange about everyday routines, ecological practices, and reflections on landscape-based resilience in two different geographical regions. Through a small series of personal letters, the project connects lived experiences shaped by care, cultivation, and storytelling.
PLANT STORIES: Performances, workshops, sounds, films and joint activities
ZK/U Berlin Siemensstr. 27, 10551, Berlin, Germany
JUNE – OCTOBER 2025
Plants and humans share habitats and histories in many ways. Together with artists, activists, researchers and guests, the PLANT STORIES event series asks: How is our view of the plant world shaped historically, socially, scientifically and personally? What projections shape our fascination with flowers, trees, herbs or indoor palms? What do plant stories reveal about their narrators? Why are the relationships between humans and plants political, and how could they look completely different?
Our relationship with vegetation is changing, for example, through colonialism, economic exploitation, knowledge systems and aesthetic trends, but also through migration histories, medical practices, everyday life, care and affection. From June to October, various artistic approaches and perspectives come together at ZK/U to exchange and experiment with stories about and with plants, to remember and speculate, and to explore their emancipatory potential for cross-species coexistence.
Artistic direction: Andrea Goetzke & Lina Brion
Graphics: BANK™
Funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds.
Foto credits Stefanie Kulisch
PLANT STORIES #3: Feminist Perspectives on Plants and Resistance Movements
Conversation with Bilge Emine Arslan and Anguezomo Nzé Mba Bikoro, moderated by Sara Morais dos Santos Bruss
27 JULY / 7 p.m.
ZK/U BerlinSiemensstr. 27, 10551, Berlin, Germany
What role do land and plants play in resistance struggles? How are practices such as planting and cultivating, gathering and tending, harvesting and oil production, etc. connected to resistance struggles? How do plants and humans resist together? In their work, artists Anguezomo Nzé Mba Bikoro and Bilge Emine Arslan explore how practices involving plants are rooted in experiences and forms of knowledge that have emerged from engagement with the land, and how they are linked to feminist struggles.
The conversation will take place in the pop-up exhibition space for Bilge Emine Arslan's work ‘Letter Based Dialogue’ as part of her ongoing artistic research project ‘Land, Grapes, and Resistance.’ It follows Anguezomo Nzé Mba Bikoro's workshop on ‘Paraecologies for Weaving Conflict Strategies.’ In conversation with curator and researcher Sara Morais dos Santos Bruss, the two bring together different artistic approaches and experiences in different struggles and regions. We are still looking for a third perspective; for updates, check https://www.instagram.com/plant.stories_/.
Cashmere Specials : Plant Stories Radio
Link to the program: https://cashmereradio.com/episode/cashmere-specials-plant-stories-radio/
PLANT STORIES is about human relations to/with plants, why they are political, and how they can be different. It is a current summer programme June – October 2025 at ZK/U (Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik) in Moabit. Wit Plant Stories Radio, we give some space for contexts, backgrounds, learnings, reflections of the projects in the series, and also find out what happens when different artists in the programme are in resonance and conversation with each other. Also, we appreciate a space for sharing and listening to related sounds.
In preparation of our big finissage programme on 4 October, we talk with researcher and writer Sina Ribak (https://www.sinaribak.net/) about her project on natureculture stories of the flax plant (Lein auf deutsch) and what emancipatory politics could mean in the context of human relations to plants. On 4 October, Sina presents "flax friction. Eine Pflanze namens Lein" – a gathering, storytelling, sounds & a flax plant (https://www.zku-berlin.org/timeline/plant-stories-6-flax-friction-eine-pflanze-namens-lein/). We invite Bilge Emine Arslan (https://www.bilgeeminearslan.com/) to reflect on her project "Grapes, Land and Resistance" in July, and share a reading of the letter exchange between two women tending a garden in South-Eastern Turkey and in Berlin respectively. Rooted in ancestral memory and family archive research, the project reflects on the role of women in preserving land-based knowledge through everyday practices, and considers the role of plant relations in resistance struggles. (https://www.zku-berlin.org/timeline/plant-stories-3-grapes-land-and-resistance-letter-based-dialogue/). Hosted by Andrea Goetzke, co-curator of PLANT STORIES.
Plant Stories: https://www.zku-berlin.org/timeline/plant-stories/, https://www.instagram.com/plant.stories_/
Image Credit: Stefanie Kulisch
