Plants have feelings too
If you doubt that statement, an exhibition in Nicosia proves it. You can hear the plants emitting something that sounds eerily like a scream
Plants are more than just vegetables. They respond to touch; you can stroke them and they feel it. You may be skeptical but recent studies have shown this is indeed a fact, the debate starting back in 1996 when a lie detector expert connected a plant to a polygraph and noticed changes as soon as he began contemplating burning the plant’s leaves. At the Hellenic Bank’s Cultural Centre in Nicosia, strange sounds can be heard in a room where 12 plants are connected to a system of sensors that capture their moods. And with recent natural disasters, the exhibition Natura Madre-Natura Morta has a sad message to spread…
Stathis Chrissikopoulos and Filonas Lambrou enact a parable of existence where the physical and the metaphysical coincide. At first glance, the exhibition could be described as frugal but upon closer inspection, there is a lot to be interpreted. A path is presented; on one end, the beginning, a symbolic image of Mother Nature, dealt with by using the genital delta covered in moss. At the other end, a dead tree trunk indicates an epilogue, the necessary end of the life cycle. In between are the plants that are generating what the artists refer to as cosmic sounds.
“Every living organism has energy flowing through it and a certain electrical field,” says Stathis Chryssikopoulos, one of the duo that has put together the exhibition. “Of course, the volts are minute but through a multiplying device they are strong enough to be heard when connected to a sound generator.” Apparently, scientists in Italy and Germany have shown that plants, when under threat, can marshal a positively devilish measure of cunning. “They communicate between each other, obviously not in the same way we humans do, but, through research, scientists have shown that they do send electrical signals in case of a fire or a hurricane,” says Chrissikopoulos.
Depending on the environment that surrounds them, plants react in certain ways. “At the Cultural Centre because they are among brick walls, cement and other artificial materials, the sounds that are being sent out aren’t calm but extremely intense,” the artist explains. When the same exhibition was on show in Patra, Greece in a church made entirely out of natural materials in contact with the ground, the sounds emitted by the plants were a lot different to those heard at the Cultural Centre.
However, the message the two artists are attempting to send out has a more environmental theme too, which happens to coincide with the recent fires in Greece. “It is a complete coincidence but by depicting Mother Nature on one hand with the moss triangle and then the dead, almost burnt tree trunk, we are saying that at the rate we are going as humans, meaning the disrespect we show Mother Nature, this is the ending, unfortunately.”
Natura Madre – Natura Morta (Mother Nature)
With installations by Stathis Chrisikopoulos and Lambros Filonas. Until September 28. Hellenic Bank Cultural Centre, Cnr of Athalassas and Limassol Avenue. Tel: 22-500811
