Allard Pierson | 13 June 2025
The Artistic Research Research Group is collaborating with the Allard Pierson in the framework of its Hortus Medicus project – finding ways to bridge the reinterpretation of a 17th century garden with contemporary arts and relevant research discourses within the creative humanities. The Hortus Medicus was a 17th century medicinal garden that was used for study and educational purposes, which the Allard Pierson is reconstructing based on documents such as the Moninckx Atlas (featuring detailed descriptions of the area and its plantlife), opening possibilities for interdisciplinary research across archaeology, botany, art, history and pharmacy. In its current stage, actors involved with the project seek ways to engage contemporary interpretations of gardens and their functions in urban environments to aid in creating thought-provoking ways of engagement and opportunities for study within and outside university contexts. Through a one-day event inviting a variety of artistic researchers and curators from in and around Amsterdam to hold lectures and workshops, we intend to create a meaningful dialogue with the themes of this project and the Allard Pierson’s collection. In this context, we intend to look specifically at the ways in which theory and art practice combined can propel situated knowledges linking the garden as a site of curiosity and interaction to pressing ecological discourses on more-than human relations and their histories, urban development, and our present-day relations to gardens and plants as sites of healing.
Programme
10.15 – 10.45. Welcome from Els van der Plas (Allard Pierson). Introduction to the Hortus Medicus Project
10.45 – 11.00. Colin Sterling (UvA). Cultivating Artistic Research Gardens in Museums and Universities
11.00 – 11.30. Laurie Cluitmans (Centraal Museum Utrecht). Curatorial Perspectives on Art and Gardening
11.30 – 12.30. Discussion, workshop and opportunity to view collections related to the Hortus Medicus
~ 12.30 – 13.30. Lunch ~
13.30 – 14.00. Corina Apostol (UvA). Reclaiming the ‘Pharmakon’: Artistic Explorations of Botanical Coloniality
14.00 – 14.30. Leonie Brandner. Cosmopoiesis of Mandragora
14.30 – 15.15. Toni Kritzer. The Sick Garden
~ 15.15 – 15.45. Coffee ~
15.45 – 16.15. de Onkruidenier. Urban Nature and Future Ecosystems
16.15 – 17.00. Collective harvest
Colin Sterling 