Exhibition text for:

UA006050455LV_
Ferdinand Waas and Tim Rosenbaum 

White Box / KHiO (Oslo, Norway)

9th - 13th of November 2021

The rational mind of the European traveler and traders was struck by witnessing the lush and untouched gardens while visiting the Ottoman Empire. Especially the admiration of the beauty itself, beyond the flowers' pure practical function. This framed the pathway into the domain of leisure adopted by western civilizations.
picked freshly yet planted way too late, you drive past, in a hurry, a second to last beauty, though I still care, even after we end, crammed, decayed and bent over

Flowers were turned into commodities like furniture, with the main aim to visually comfort us while sitting in the armchair looking at them resting still wrapped in paper on the shelf. As the person walks by the newly-bought essential fragile object, they notice a smell that smells like an air conditioner rather than a flower.
The amount of flowers you receive in your lifetime doesn’t indicate any feeling,

all picked freshly yet transported way too late,

a life measured in days, vague and incomplete

On this ceaseless quest for the displaying of a process of research, the intrinsic nature of the flower market comes as a crossbred analogy. We wonder, how to present a final product, something already dead when it comes from a spread over time? And when to pick your station to rest and fuel up until your next stop? A crucial parameter in explaining the relation of a person towards the value of a plant is the human consciousness which is defining time by comparing their lifespans. The human impossibility to maintain attention for longer periods intervenes with our perception of how things are made within a cycle when a flower only ends up in a vase before being replaced. As a result of laziness, one could say, we use cut flowers instead of witnessing their growth, we transport them for momentary awe.
There are distances I keep measuring

How many steps in a pilgrimage,

How many tears shed for a forgotten storage unit

How many highways to tell your flowers are still living

Back of your truck, exactly four degrees

How many yards for a garden to play hide and seek ?

Sometimes I also wish I had instructions to keep me alive and awake

(sun, water, verbal care) and from there we are always a hundred thousand flowers away

Installation views