àngels viladomiu

This project consists of a herbarium of leaves collected within the grounds of Berlin’s Friedenau cemetery, also known as the graveyard of the artists since many sculptors and other artists are buried here.

The plant leaves on display are protected by a plastic sheet and arranged on shelves in a disorderly manner emphasizing their differences. On the sketch of the cemetery grounds the artists’ locations are marked with the references of the 40 species collected.

Biodiversiät-Künstlerfriedhof (Biodiversity-Artists cemetery) connects the diversity of plants and artists that are welcomed by the cemetery. Wild plants and cultivated plants; that in the essential characteristics of their genus can be found the uniqueness of each species, emphasising difference and that over time this will dissolve in order to once again reunite. Biodiversity and the ephemeral nature of the leaves become a metaphor of the changing gaseous state of art and artists, as denominated by Yves Michaud in L’Art à l’état gazeux: essai sur le triomphe de l’esthétique (2003).