Wardat al-Mustashar, or The Adviser’s Flower (2022). Installation; collection of pressed oleander flower clippings, 40 retyped diary entries, digital negatives of archival herbarium samples displayed in light boxes.
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Wardat al-Mustashar, or the Adviser’s Flower explores the history of the oleander, a highly toxic and invasive plant species on the islands of Bahrain. Known locally as "the Adviser's Flower", the flower was allegedly introduced and planted by the British Adviser to the Emir, Sir Charles Belgrave. Through an examination of Belgrave's personal diary, insight into his preoccupation with oleanders is presented alongside the artist’s own research diary, where the past is exhumed and the Adviser's political, social, and agricultural influence is laid bare.
In the process of retracing Belgrave's footsteps, specimens of oleanders are collected from across Bahrain and dry pressed, drawing upon botanical research conventions established in colonial practices obsessed with collecting and recording.
This research exposes the remnants of colonialism that continue to linger and seep into the fabric of our present. A large collection of oleander samples from the Herbarium of the University of South Florida are printed as negatives and spliced together as new plants. Mounted on light boxes, the plant formations echo the viewing of an X-ray, the visuals associated with displacement and the crossing of borders.
Commissioned by 421.
As installed in And The Mirrors Are Many, 421 (2023). Image credits: Seeing Things/Ismail Noor, courtesy of 421.