Installation, variable dimensions, 2025
A collaborative artwork by Ece Eldek and Andrea Acosta
This project explores the notion of ghost species: plants that have disappeared or are on the brink of extinction, yet linger in memory, myth, or trace. In response to the architectural features of the ZKU building, such as the circular garden plot and its exposed beams — Acosta and Eldek turn their attention to what is no longer visible. Confronted with a dusty, vacant patch of earth, they began to ask: what once grew here, and how might we remember—or even summon—it through the act of naming and storytelling?
For the Plant Stories series, they propose an intervention in these spaces through a series of botanical tags, akin to those used in gardens or arboreta. But rather than identifying extant species, each tag marks an absence: a vanished or imagined plant, conjured through poetic and speculative writing, with a focus on species from Turkey, Berlin, and Colombia. These texts gesture toward what has been lost, but also toward what might return through language, memory, or the collective imagination.
