SONG / CANTO
Wildflower prunings of Brassica Campestris & black paint
350 x 350 cm
Santiago, Chile
2024


Brassica Campestris, best known as Rapeseed, is a well known weed with yellow flowers that grows wild in road side verges in and out of Santiago. The stems used in SONG where collected along the banks of Canal San Carlos (San Carlos Channel), a rain water colector that crosses the east of Santiago, from the Maipo River to the Mapocho River. The banks of this channel currently house many homeless people who benefit from the water of the channel as much as the wild Rapeseed.  
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These annual wild flower develops incredibly sturdy woody stems after seeding, which branch at acute angles. Even though this installation brings together over 300 cuttings, I only found twelve possible ways of cutting the branching stems whilst searching for one continuous meandering line. These twelve archetypal forms are then repeated in different sizes and proportions, from which the final composition emerges. 
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The arrangement of the plant cuttings in this large wall installation, as well as the title given to this work, evoque a music score created by the eloquence of the silent wild flowers. 

 
Photos by Ignacio Perez