Plants are the new pets

Millennials have discovered the jungle for themselves without taking a single long-haul flight that is harmful to the environment: plants are growing in the living room, in the bathroom, in the kitchen, even in the corridor. Green thumbs seem to be innate in the younger generation. The tamed green is not only for decoration: Plants are the new pets.

At least that’s what the current show at the Zurich Museum of Design claims. There are currently two exhibitions that deal with the same question from different perspectives: Does our relationship with nature need to be rethought?

Pots with special functions

Industrial objects and prototypes from product design, textiles, fashion and digital communication show the diversity with which designers, engineers and scientists have already addressed these questions. Some of the projects shown are speculative and investigate, for example, how plant and computer language can be linked. Others already fit into everyday life and into our homes.

There, the green roommates not only need loving care, but also appropriate housing. The design collective Dossofiorito created the “Phytophiler” (English: plant lover) for this purpose. The ceramic pot is round like a dog cushion and is reminiscent of a clipped climbing tree for house cats, two huge magnifying glasses complete the game of circles. Through this intimate (visual) contact, they invite a closer connection with plant life.

The green is more than just beautiful, according to the exhibition text it becomes a “therapeutic feel-good companion”. Plants not only deserve attention, but also respect, the curators demand.

The exhibition teaches us that it is a mistaken assumption that we determine the location of our plants. It is the plants themselves that choose their environment: a daring thesis, which was confirmed to a certain extent by my cacti. They only bloomed when I had completely forgotten about them. As long as I diligently looked after my phyto friends, they let me down. Apparently I missed making alliances with my plants. This is exactly what the exhibition also suggests: they could not only be pet substitutes, but also allies.

Pots with swiveling arms, tubs with spider legs and stacked clay pots are lined up in the exhibition. They mimic the plant shapes and also control how the plant grows. All sorts of everyday objects also grow from the material, such as a root dress and an entire chair that was grown into its shape from a wooden trellis on a farm in Chesterfield, England.

Green allies

Should we, because of all these miracles, grant the plants an intelligence and rights of their own? Amidst these demands, I am reminded of the plants I have given too little: not just too little water, too small pots, but too little love for the creature altogether. At the sight of the well-formed and even intelligent plant containers, I get a sinking feeling in my stomach, even a guilty conscience.

However, with the next of around fifty projects brought together from all over the world, attention shifts headfirst again. Fundamental ethical questions are up for discussion.

“Are we at the beginning of a new chapter in the mutual evolution of humans and plants?” The statement by the curatorial team Laura Drouet and Olivier Lacrouts at the end of the exhibition underlines their seriousness in dealing with plants as fully-fledged creatures, therapists, friends and allies of humans.

The dignity of the plant creature

Demands for ethical principles for plants and animals are nothing new. “It is not clear that plants are sentient, nor can we simply say today that they are not.”, that is what the extra-parliamentary Federal Commission for Non-Human Biotechnology considered a good ten years ago. According to the Commission, one can argue for the dignity of creatures in plants, because we have lost the reasons for excluding plants from the group of moral considerations.

The “Plant Fever” exhibition provides plenty of arguments for the intelligence and sentience of plants and, in objects and in a figurative sense, can also be “out on the branches” according to the Swiss expression.

At the same time, in the “Cambio” show, the Italian artist duo Formafantasma outlines facets of human interaction with the resource wood as a raw material, material and organism. The offshoot of the Zurich Museum of Design in the Toni Areal, which was once an alternative area during the major renovation of the traditional main building on Ausstellungsstrasse, has meanwhile itself become a hotspot for new design ideas.

The two exhibitions are adapted takeovers from Belgium and England and complement each other perfectly. One curates a comprehensive view of the current status of relevant design research, while the other works more associatively with its collection of material, which is compiled according to artistic-scientific criteria.

All the plant intelligence challenges my head too. But above all, this sinking feeling creeps up on me in the show: Although only hard-wearing and low-maintenance greens live in my household, I have even neglected them. So I couldn’t help but immediately start looking for bigger pots for my phytomates and stroking their dry leaves to make them benevolent to me. In this way, the “ancient alliance between plants and humans” could be revived in my city apartment, despite all the omissions.

“Plant Fever. Design from the Plant Perspective», Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Toni-Areal, until April 3rd.
“Cambio: Tree, Wood, Man”, Museum of Design Zurich, Toni-Areal, until May 8th.

Accompanying publication in English. – The exhibition talk by curator Karin Gimmi with Emanuele Coccia, philosopher and author of «The Roots of the World. A philosophy of plants », and the curator Damian Foppe from January 20th was canceled at short notice.