I Never Promised You a Green Garden. EN
Eva-Maria Lopez

 

 I Never Promised You a Green Garden.


The aim of my project is to show the backstage of the green world around us - the reality which stands behind the green business. “I Never Promised You a Green Garden.” consists several ornaments, resembling those decorative motifs from folk art and mandalas. In Asian culture these patterns represent the cosmos and nature.
The ornaments are representative– in a way the idyllic world - being quite harmless and decorative, until you, find out that every motif is made up of logos. The legends show the logos from companies that produce or sell glyphosate or GM plants that resist herbicides.
The logos are often floral, like the leaves or the buds; enforcing the motto‘s for growth and for a better world with beautiful-looking plants. But this growth is mostly at the cost of a huge damaging impact on our ecological systems.
The logos I’ve chosen are from the global players in the “lucrative sector”: And also the companies, which have to merged into the latter.
Glyphosate is a recurring a symbol of the agricultural business as well as the fragile ecological situation today.
Herbicides are contaminating soil and water, harming animals and humans. The facts about the hazards are widely known and many studies and discussions about glyphosate are getting media coverage.
As an artist it‘s important for me to find a way of complete turn around.
transforming the scientific way of considering the issue to a strong visual message with a wide sustainable access for the public.
The visual “I never promised you a green garden” is also a result of my
research on the garden designs of André le Nôtre, the ornaments of the logo makes references to the „jardins à la francaise“.
The seconds antagonism is the title:I Never Promised You a Green Garden. The message that it transmits of the garden is, that it is always a green, recreating space. Herbicides are promoted to clean and  remove all greenery from pathways, in gardens and parks, railway tracks as well as in agriculture.
Whatever the plants – it doesn‘t matter weed or just other plants in competition with the crop growth - are undesirable: the promise of the herbicide is one of a „clean“ garden and field. It‘s ironic, that the colour green in society and politics stands for going ecological, with sustainability and organic agriculture.

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