Do plants have memory? Shira Wachsmann’s artistic research-based practice deals with questions of perception and the memory of plants. Within this context, she developed the “Memory-Machine”, which is connected to the roots and leaves of a plant via electrodes. These absorb the plant’s frequencies and translate them into imagery with the help of a visual programming language. Using the sound waves as a starting point, the artist collects data about the reactions of plants, in order to investigate their connection to historical memory and traumata, in the long term. In Göttingen, she will present her artistic research by means of the Alte Linde (old lime tree) by the city wall. Court-, dance- and village lime trees used to be key gathering places and bore witness to all important occurrences of village life. In reference to this, Shira Wachsmann has designed a bench, which invites the visitor to sit and contemplate humankind’s communication with the plant world.

Shira Wachsmann (b. 1984 in Tel Aviv) is an artist, living and working in Berlin. In her work, she focuses on the notion of “land”, in both senses of the word: Land as material, as soil, and land as a place, as territory; land as natural and cultural, political and historical.  She has participated in exhibitions at Display Berlin (2019); Kersan Art Foundation and OFCA International Yogyakarta (2018); Kindl – Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst (2018); Galerie cubus-m, Berlin (2016); MWW Muzeum Współczesne, Wroclaw (2015) und Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2014), amongst others. Wachsmann is doing a PhD at The Royal College of Art in London.