Tomorrow Maybe is proud to present Lo Lai Lai Natalie’s latest solo exhibition “Give no words but mum,” featuring her moving image and installation works of the past two years that portray her inexplicably dependent relationship with plants. The most recent works include a personal private underground TV station “Slow-so TV: Give no words but mum” that continues to serve distracted audiences and provides them with programs to pass the time. Thoughts, uprooted together with the plants from the earth, the fine debris serenely scattered about, calmly reveal long-suppressed desires and obsessions.
The wilderness is gently cultivated and turned into a not very orderly farmland.
The planted fruits and vegetables have been silent. I know that the blossoming ones have jumped onto trucks and upon stoves to sacrifice spectacularly; is this murder, or manslaughter? I can’t tell. So I take the chance to tell you in some other people’s words:
A one-sided relationship is developing quite well between you and me.
I know what a leaf, petal, kernel, cone, and stem are,
and I know what happens to you in April and December.
Though my curiosity is unrequited,
I gladly stoop for some of you,
and for others I crane my neck.
Wisława Szymborska, The Silence of Plants, trans. Joanna Trzeciak
Click, click, click. This is said to be the sound of rupture in the root cell walls.
You can actually hear the whispers just by pressing your ear to the ground.
Regarding the plants that remain silent, the artist has moved from curiosity and puzzlement to a calm aphasia.