Feel Free to Talk to Plants

During the exhibition on Julie de Graag, an installation by the Croatian artist Tina Iris Chulo will be displayed in the ballroom. In her work, Chulo aims to connect with the natural world, something she shares with Julie de Graag and M.C. Escher. She explores our relationship with other life forms in Feel Free to Talk to Plants (2024), with which she graduated from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague this summer. Chulo sees our relationship with nature becoming weaker and weaker, even though this ancient connection can facilitate peace and reflection today. She found inspiration in witches and herbalists, who use rituals to strengthen their connection with nature.

Central to Chulo’s work is the art of slowing down, which is also reflected in her creative process. She worked on these cyanotypes for weeks in the darkroom at the Royal Academy, where Julie de Graag also studied. The slow photographic process of cyanotype, one of the oldest photographic techniques, results in Prussian blue prints. Chulo made her own paper and created numerous cyanotypes of abstract structures, human figures and plants. She deliberately chose medicinal plants and trees with a symbolic historical significance, such as thistles and olive trees. Her work stems from an admiration for nature, which Escher and De Graag also expressed in their own way.