To Marie / Aan Marie

On July 10th, 2021, Liselore Vandeput received the most remarkable birthday gift. At midnight, her roommate handed her a plant and very proudly announced that it was the plant of the mother of Jef Geys. After the first shock of owning a plant that has passed through the hands of an artist who has been very important for her artistic practice, Jef Geys, she started thinking about the mother of Geys and logging the plant. Curious about where it could take her, she followed its lead. Spending a lot of time with the plant and its naming created a series of ques-tions about the status of women, the position of the plant within our culture and society, its link to social class or nature, and what the right name for it could be. The project tells a story about an ordinary plant and ordinary people, the relationship of the plant and its urban environment, the impression of the local that is felled on a global scale and its relation to humans. How does a collective memory create miscommunications ? And what happens when it doesn’t matter what your real name is when others call you differently ?

The work exists out of a series of A5 plastic cases containing pictures, text, photocopies, notes and conversations. With this a little reference to Jef Geys and his practice of archiving and presenting collections, notes and work over the years. It is connected to the glass window by paper tape and numbered from left to right, ordered by time and marking the growth and timespan of the project. In the window of the vitrine, you will find a variety of these plants. These will be given to the neighbourhood inhabitants by the end of the project. The vitrine creates a reflection of the urban surrounding, confirming the geranium as a plant that lives amongst humans.