Rebekka Bank

Horsetail is a small plant with a peculiar hairy look. If you have ever attempted to dig it up while weeding you would know that it’s remarkably hardy. In overlooked corners of the city the ribbed shoots appear through sediment in sidewalks while few mention its story as a prehistoric plant most likely eaten by dinosaurs. Somewhere in time between urban sceneries and paleozoic landscapes more plants appeared, disappeared, evolved and transformed into countless morphologies.

 

In a shifting habitat alienated from primary resources, I started a collection of natural artifacts. Inspired by the practise of foraging, it became a small ritual for myself, in which every finding became a carrier of a memory or a long forgotten story. The dynamic pace of the city didn't seem to resonate with this unhurried activity - so I constructed my own environment, of shelf structures and systems, most likely mystifying for many: a laboratory for for close observation, a slow-moving space for slow-moving thoughts. Carrier bags and pockets became vessels for  thoughts, which I carefully collected alongside pebbles and bittercress.

 

Recognizing a plant can be like encountering an old friend and once you learn how to forage, you can take the knowledge with you wherever you go; a toolbox, training the ability to make memories with a place.

This wasn't meant as a productive activity to retrieve food, but instead it became a hybrid practice gathering ancient tales and fragments of foreign landscapes, nettles, memories and wild-growing patterns. All of it, somehow, to find a sense of belonging in spaces where nothing belongs.