When vegetation is not decorative (Triptych)

This project focuses on vegetation as a political agent in the context of territorial control in the colonial and postcolonial periods in the South. Vegetation does not only serve decorative purposes, as in private gardens: on a larger-scale, it becomes a tool with which to plan and manage territory or, conversely to aid in the resistance movement. It makes it possible to disappear and escape the colonial grid. And it was also used to create conditions of diverse and autonomous existence by state administrations, such as those described by James Scott in The Art of not Being Governed or by Philippe Zourgane in the text Architectural Free Zone. This installation takes the form of a triptych that illustrates three uses of vegetation: one in Réunion Island, one in Algeria and one in 20th Century Vietnam. This work consists exclusively of archive materials. Vegetation can serve as a tool to conquer terrirtories, but it can also constitute a precious device in resistance struggles or, simply, a source of pleaure and joy in life, beyond questions of control.

Archive 1

The Green Room - Vegetation is an anti-capitalist weapon

The Green Room presented here is an archive. It is the reconstruction of a temporary space built by members of the working-class on Réunion Island over the course of 150 years, from the abolition of slavery until the end of the 20th Century. Such structures were erected to celebrate important moments in family life such as weddings, baptisms, birthdays and kabars (parties). Often they were built on occupied land beside the people’s houses or in their gardens. The bamboo was sourced in the wild, and the coconut leaves were gathered by family-members and friends: from the roadsides, the urban streets or public gardens.

The Green Room consists of a bamboo frame, covered with woven coconut leaves. Once its function had been served, the canes were usually set aside to be reused, while the woven leaves were used for other purposes, such as protecting young plants or objects from the sun. When these temporary structures were abandoned, the plant element dried out and decomposed over the course of the seasons.

Vegetation is employed here as an anti-capitalist weapon that enabled people to take pleasure in life. It is a free architectural structure, constructed using free materials, that can be used freely on free land. The construction method is collaborative: a joint effort by family, friends and neighbours.

Archive 2

Blending in with the vegetation - Vegetation is an anticolonial weapon.

The archive images presented here are from the film Chiến thắng Tây Bắc' (The victory of the North West) shot in 1952 by the military forces in Viet Minh during the war against French occupation. Here vegetation is a tool employed in the struggle by the weakest against the strongest. We do not refer here to the art of camouflage, nor to a return to a primitive state: rather it is used as a subordinate weapon for the preservation of autonomy. Vegetation is often used as a political agent in asymmetrical or revolutionary wars, as theorised by Mao Tse-Toung and Ho Chi Minh. These images also demonstrate a form of counter-planning of the land that allows topography (plains and mountains), geography and the ecosystem (the forest or the savana) to be used as a weapon. These images depict the strength of the soldiers who become one with their territory. I am the territory. They inhabit it, and reconstruct it as something else. Thousands of soldiers travel across the country without using the established infrastructure. Instead they use pathways that allow them to avoid detection by the French occupiers. In this way they invent a new map. This map subverts the relationship between city and countryside, and the new territory is built from nature (the countryside) towards culture (the city). Where, previously, bamboo rafts were used to cross rivers, here Giap built invisible bridges, along the Ho Chi Minh route, made from bamboo and positioned 10 centimetres under the surface of the water to allow them to escape the enemy's bombardment of the infrastructure. As well as the refinement of these particular inventions, what stands out is the use of vegetation to support the resistance effort.

Archive 3

The deconstruction of the indigenous landscape – Vegetation as a colonial weapon

These archive photos were taken by the French Army. They were taken between 1956 and 1958. They document harvesting in Algeria. In this case, it is the French Army that are doing the harvesting, protected by elite soldiers and armored units of the French army on behalf of leading colonisers. These images clearly depict the yield obtained from the land, and the exploitation of agriculture for the benefit of the coloniser. But these images also show the critical aspects of the transformation of the landscape. On the one hand, we note the radical planning of this territory in terms of the intense cultivation of cereals. The intensive monoculture is designed to produce the maximum possible yield. On the other hand, a process of transformation of the territory is under way. Aside from the word "Algeria" written on the grain sacks, it seems that we are witnessing a French cereal farming region. Here vegetation is clearly used to assimilate and acculturate. Vegetation is employed by the attacker and coloniser of a country or region, to deterritorialize its inhabitants. Rendering the natives foreigners in their own land was a technique that frequently used by colonisers. In the 20th Century, following the invasion of Poland, Nazi Germany implemented a wide-reaching process of “Germanisation” of the territory, to render it German.