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REVOLUTIONARY HERBARIUM

Installation
Fabric, embroidery, medicine plants // 200 cm x 220 cm
Centre d'Estudis i Documentació MACBA, Barcelona
2021

Revolutionary Herbarium is a miscellanea of ethnobotanical drawings about medicinal plants that, because of their therapeutic principles, have been deliberately have been deliberately commodified, rendered invisible, or removed from circulation in order to protect the interests of the pharmaceutical lobby. These ancestral plants remain profoundly contemporary, offering knowledge and remedies for many of the diseases that continue to affect us today.

The herbarium is made on fabric, with each plant embroidered by stitching its seedlings. Its nomenclature follows popular traditions while embracing a decolonial approach to botany. The handmade process also embodies an anti-capitalist gesture, explicitly referencing the ancestral codes and sacred textile practices of Indigenous peoples, such as the Shipibo, whose weaving traditions are deeply intertwined with medicinal plants.

Conceived as a work in progress, the herbarium continues to grow over time, incorporating new pages and medicinal plants from different ecological and cultural contexts, including Brazil, Italy, Portugal, Belgium, Spain, and Ethiopia.


Revolutionary Herbarium has been shown internationally, in venues such as  CED- MACBA Museum, Barcelona, Tangent Project/ Barcelona and at the National Museum Nacional of Science and Natural History of Lisbon

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