In her recent project, Elisa Strinna explores the relationship between plants and the human body. With her project 'My Body is a Plant - garden of banes', she takes a close look at healers and witchery while delving into the ideologies of modernity regarding notions of the feminine, the non-human, and the irrational.
'My Body is a Plant - roots my nervous system' was presented at documenta fifteen, and produced in collaboration with Italian herbalist, Karin Mecozzi, and American scholar Dr. Nicole Trigg.
Due to the process of modern rationalization leading to the abandonment of magical and incalculable forms of reading the world - and the subsequent emergence of Capitalism - female bodies have been condemned to torture trials and stakes. These executions took place because of the control on female reproductive power and their embodiment of ancestral knowledge. The uncanny shapes and mesmerizing colors of Strinna porcelain sculptures reveal insurgent potentialities beyond our disenchanted world. Plants normally associated with healers and witches, ingredients for the flying ointment, are investigated by the artist to consider the connection between humans and medicinal plants with poisonous, healing, and mind-altering properties.
The sculptures, and the watercolor, come out from a hybridization process between plant and human organs. In particular, they are based on the relationships between Nightshade (Atropa belladonna) and the human bronchial respiratory system, and between the reproductive and nervous systems of women and the Henbane (Hyoscyamus niger).