Silvia Cini • Avant que nature meure

Two artists meet across time through their works: Enrico Coleman, the leading landscape painter of 19th-century Rome, and Silvia Cini, who, based on the plates he left behind, walks through an increasingly anthropized Urbe, searching for and finding the wild orchids described by Coleman, in order to protect them.

The historical spaces of the ELTE Botanical Garden in Budapest host the first stage of Silvia Cini’s project “Avant que nature meure,” for which Careof is a cultural partner: a reflection on the resilience of nature to the progressive anthropization of the landscape, an itinerary through Europe of exhibitions, events, open calls, and encounters, presented by the Museo Orto Botanico of the Università “La Sapienza” in Rome and realized with the support of the Italian Council (XI edition, 2022), an international promotion program for Italian contemporary art by the Direzione Generale Creatività Contemporanea of the Ministero della Cultura.

Since the early 1990s, Silvia Cini has worked through participatory art practices and has focused her interest on the landscape as a social metaphor, integrating art and botany. “Avant que nature meure” is the result of a research project that began in 2015 on the current blooming of wild orchids in the urban context, as bioindicators of the health of cities.

The title quotes the 1965 text by French scientist Jean Dorst, one of the founding figures in environmental protection: a warning about the extinction of biodiversity and a call for the reconciliation of humanity with nature. Starting from these principles, the artist is mapping the wild orchids of Rome, based on watercolor studies made from life—each indicating the blooming location—by painter Enrico Coleman between 1893 and 1910, preserved along with his precious herbarium at the Istituto Italiano per la Grafica, where the two works will be reunited upon completion of the project. Thanks to this valuable testimony of the biodiversity of a bygone Rome, Silvia Cini is rediscovering in the urbanized and increasingly anthropized areas of contemporary Rome the wild orchids he depicted, with the ultimate goal of engaging with institutions and technician_ to adjust mowing schedules, contributing to the preservation of the still-existing varieties.

The project unfolds in several phases—online, on life, and offline: the creation of a digital platform in progress will provide an indicative map of the blooming locations of wild orchids in Rome and will include texts, images, videos, and podcasts, created in collaboration with botanic, urbanist, artist, and sociolog. With the activation of an open call, citizen_ and city users will be invited to upload photos of orchids encountered in the city to the platform, exponentially expanding field observations and helping to create a collective awareness. Dérive in the green, updating the psychogeographic surveying techniques of Guy Debord, will involve small groups of the public walking through the super-organism of the metropolis in search of orchids. Exhibitions, events, and meetings created in collaboration with organizations that work with art and nature—such as Careof, Fondazione Lac o Le Mon, Hellenic Society for the Protection of Nature, Hungarian Garden Heritage Foundation, MAMbo, Museu da Amazônia, PAV Parco Arte Vivente, PILOT Bratislava—will be collected in a catalogue curated by Alessandra Pioselli.

“Avant que nature meure” will conclude in Rome in spring 2024, with an exhibition in the spaces of the Museo Orto Botanico of the Università “La Sapienza.”

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