Veronica persica balloon

Are there more stories about plants that have been erased from history? Hiroi wondered after reading Londa Schiebinger’s book Plants and Empires, which focus on the work of the natural scientist/painter Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717).

Hiroi researched about “Agnotology” and “plants”, leading her to the story of the “veronica persica” that concerns the study of genetic effects of radioactivity in plants after WW2. Veronica persica is grote ereprijs in Dutch, ooinuno fuguri in Japanese. Researchers published a paper in Japan showing that the frequency of mutations of the flower was higher the closer to the hypocentre in Hiroshima, but this paper was never passed abroad because it did not fit with the 'image of peace' by the USA.

Hiroi will makes layered installation which deals the topics of “manipulation” and “mutation” by contrasting some examples of how people are manipulated during the world war two and mutation of the tiny flowers of ”veronica persica” by the atomic bomb.

Concept, Research and Development: Kumi Hiroi

Curator: Natalia Sudova Special thanks to Kaori Iida (Research Center for Integrative Evolutionary Science, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, SOKENDAI)