With the workshop Follow the Plants, Alevtina Kakhidze invites us to look into the plant world and see our surroundings from their perspective. The artist investigates the relationship between plants and humans and centres her research on stable plant systems such as steppe or prairie, as well as in so-called ‘invasive’ and ‘tender’ plants in relation to ecosystems, and in perennial species that promise to be a step forward in agriculture in the face of climate change. Follow the Plants is an indoor-outdoor event, which looks at the role of humans in shifting ecosystems. Having developed rebalancing strategies, for example through cooking and eating ‘invasive’ plants, Kakhidze invites us to reconsider the local ecosystem in Luxembourg, during a walk around the Park Dräi Eechelen next to Mudam.

The workshop is a part of the programme Colonialism in Camouflage, curated by the collective Beyond the post-soviet in Mudam Luxembourg.

Biographical notes

Alevtina Kakhidze (b. 1973) is a Ukrainian artist. She works predominantly in performance and drawing. Based in Muzychi, 26 kilometres from Kyiv, and having grown up in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, Kakhidze has experienced Ukraine’s abrupt and chaotic changes in that time, from the days of the USSR to the imbalanced environment after, including the undeclared war between Russia and Ukraine in 2014 and the recent brutal attack that started on 24 February 2022.

Beyond the post-soviet emerged in 2021 as a non-hierarchic collective that produces and disseminates knowledge on geographic and cultural regions, previously referred to as ‘post-soviet space’ and ‘post-socialist countries’. The group approaches research affectively and relies on multiple types of knowledge, including theoretical knowledge, works of art and fiction, individual and collective stories, memories and emotions. It gathers artists, researchers, thinkers and curators based in and working across different contexts.