The Whisperer –
The Whisperer is a travelling exhibition, a station of knowledge. In the exhibition the artists sends The Akkub plant of the tumbleweed variety (aka Gundelia tournefortii) as a knowledge-agent to bear witness to place. At the plant’s base is a tissue that allows for the branches to detach after it dries into a bundle. Once its detachment is complete it begins to sail with the wind and to spread its seeds.
(Right: Gundelia Tournefortii / Akkub in the field, Left: dried and examined in the studio. Photo by the artist)
The Gundelia Tournefortii became a conflict plant that relates to how human beings use fauna and flora as mythological symbols of rootedness and indigenousness. Plants are often employed culturally and politically to construct imagined communities and a collective sense of belonging. Nevertheless in the case of the Akkub, its behavior is one of separation and detachment. At its core is the notion of knowledge transfer and dissemination. It paradoxically acts autonomously, refusing to play its designated role. The plant shows us that all knowledge and progress are, inevitably, a result of of detachment, not of rootedness/implantation.
The name “whisperer” was coined by the Bedouin population because the plant makes a whispering sound when tumbling and also because it is thought to spread secrets as it tumbles from neighbor to neighbor and from field to field. In her work, De Vries uses the plant as a witness to a conflicted space, physically and culturally.
The Akkub is a field plant, a weed that grows across the Middle East. The plant was consumed due to its high nutritional value. In addition, the plant is of high cultural value among Palestinians, as several harvesting and cooking traditions revolve around its heritage. Until approximately 15 years ago, the Jewish Israeli population and its institutions had little or no awareness of the existence of the plant. The only acknowledgement it received was in the 1950’s, when the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture categorized the plant as a bad weed and published guidelines on how to bring about its extinction. Through a process of cultural influences and appropriation, the Jewish Israeli population has begun to discover and appreciate the flavor of the Akkub. This in turn has created a higher demand for the plant in the Jewish kitchen and in Arab restaurants with Jewish clientele, while at the same time the open spaces in which the plant reproduces naturally are shrinking.
Knowledge about how to pick the weed and where to find it resides with the Palestinian Arab population, and due to growing economic strains, Palestinians are being outsourced by contractors to pick the plant for consumption by the Jewish population. The rising demand for the Akkub led the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel to declare the plant a protected species in 2005, contradicting the 1950’s decree. Claiming that the Palestinians are “destroying” and “terrorizing” the landscape, the state has appointed several bodies, including the Society for the Protection of Nature, a special policing unit of the Nature and Parks Authority known as the Green Police, and a special military reserves unit to track and fine the Palestinian pickers, confiscate and destroy their crops as punishment.
As the weed tumbles, it tells the story of the relationship between nature and culture in a conflicted society. Jewish society takes advantage of the indigenousness of the Palestinian population to define and know itself. The weed went from being a natural part of the landscape to being protected in the name of culture. And while its natural growth is being suppressed, it has found a way back into agriculture by tumbling into gardening-scapes known as Limans, an ancient water trapping system for desert regions, which can now be found on the outskirts of modern Jewish residential communities. The Liman is an ideal habitat for the weed. Where it breeds in celebration. This “autonomous” act of survival and growth connects the plant back to its cultural origin and embodies resistance in its presence to the new landscape. The plant does not register borders nor boundaries and is moved by wind and topographical powers alone.
The tumbleweed is a carrier of knowledge that spreads through its “whisper.” The artist tracks the plant’s wisdom and uses it to examine the region as a whole.
The travelling agent exhibition carries the following:
“The Whisperer”, multi-channel video work, 3:10 minutes – Video installation with a three-part screen showing (1) a news report about Israeli efforts to stop elderly Palestinian women from picking the plant (2) footage of the Akkub itself, accompanied by texts inspired by scientific writings on the plant (3) scientific texts about the Akkub combined with transcripts of the reportage displayed on the first screen. The texts are intentionally intertwined to show how seemingly scientific objectivity is alternately replaced by intensely emotional and ideological dialogue.
(“The Whisperer”, three channel video. Link to view: https://youtu.be/11Hkn2P06tM)
A Dried Gundelia Tournefortii in a Glass Ball – 0.5m in diameter (can also be made smaller).
Timeline of Existence – Cultural Significance and Desire of the Gundelia Tournefortii – A diagram of the plant’s movement in space (printed and framed).
(Study of the movement, structure, and life cycle of the Akkub by wind and topography. Diagram by the artist)
The Whisperer Archive – Includes media coverage, scientific literature, transcripts from a conference dedicated to the plant, still photographs and botanical descriptions (can be bound into one folder or as a collection of scattered documents in a designated reading area).
Movement Lab – The Power of Turning – Act I (Video)
This video piece is not only a translation of the Akkub’s tumbling movement, it’s also a manifestation of collaboration, space, territory and compromise. The tumbleweed taught me to move. Its movement is not random; it has principles and a methodology developed through practice. Natural shapes don’t just come into being as they are. They emerge from various conditions and evolution. The study of the plant’s composition, behavior and movement is key to realizing that compromise does not result from vacuum or constraint, but rather requires structure. In Act I, I drew lines extending the growth curves of its leaves onto the floor of my studio and paced them off. I follow these points, which form eight rotations. Always seven or eight. That’s how the spiral that created the structure of the dance was replicated. I am now working on Act II with the same dancer.
(The Power of Turning – Act I, Video by the artist)