Artwork > Residency at the Orto Botanico di Palermo

Bamboo is one of several trees I'm examining as a part of the Giardino Coloniale (colonial garden) within the Orto Botanico. It represents a period when Italy was attempting to compete with the colonial empires of other European nations. The garden offered an opportunity to use its agricultural strengths to expand its territory. The basic approaches of colonialism (accumulation, occupation, material consumption) were motivators in this approach to agriculture. Many crops were collected and researched in the hopes of being able to use them in future North African colonies. While Italians' attempts at foreign colonies official failed in WWII, it continued to use the Giardino Coloniale for agricultural research through the 1970s.