PATRICK WILL: "URTICA D."

PAVILLON PARZELLE 3

19.4. - 25.8.2024

Patrick Will explores questions about the value of plants in his artistic work. Like many supposed 'non-herbs', the stinging nettle (Urtica) has been part of European culture and a companion to humans for centuries. Its fibres have been used to make fabric and paint, and the lye it produces helps to regenerate the soil. Will tells the story of playing spaces from the perspective of this plant actor: nettles were part of it, in the peasant vegetable garden or in the shade of the manure heap. Despite their dreaded stinging hairs, they constantly offered their co-operation to humans, whether as food or material for textile production. Stinging nettle soup is part of the childhood memories of older generations. But the adult plants are frustrated and have to act:
Herbicides and regular weeding by human farmers limit their habitat on the desolate heap, which is also getting bigger and taking away their most precious light.
Patrick Will's botanical docu-fiction shows, among other things, the plant's last chance for action.

Patrick Will (*1991 in Wriezen, Brandenburg) is a visual artist living in Magdeburg and Chemnitz. He studied audiovisual media design at the University of Wuppertal and fine arts at the Dresden and Hamburg Universities of Fine Arts. His artistic work focuses on the coexistence of plants and humans in ecological systems. Since 2022, the location-independent Weed Information Centre has been one of his most important artistic projects.

The first Nettle Conference Central Saxony will take place from 16 March to 23 June 2024 in parallel with the exhibition. Further information can be found here https://www.aufweiterflur.org/brennnessel

PARZELLE 3 - Artistic projects and temporary exhibitions on the coexistence of humans and nature

A permanent branch of the Kunsthaus Dresden in collaboration with the allotment garden association Flora I e. V.

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PARCEL 3
Kleingärtnerverein Flora I e.V.
Bergmannstraße stop (lines 4, 10, 63 + 64)
Bergmannstraße 39
01309 Dresden-Striesen
Admission free

All open-air garden projects and the exhibition pavilion can be visited daily.

Parzelle 3 is funded by the Blasewitz district office & the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony.