EMILY THOMPSON FLOWERS

The usual tie between art and botany is inverted in this work: instead of mosaics and reliefs that imitate flowers and plants, in this case it is the latter –alive and dead– that give life to the stone. We chose the most sober and monolithic part of the building, the south wall of the Patio de los Naranjos courtyard, to create three landscapes that are at once fantastical and mournful. Our reverence is not reserved only for the living world of plants and flowers, but also for their ancestors, as we bow to the magnificent decayed specimen at the center. It is an inversion of the usual order of things.

Like three open windows in the wall, the central installation pays homage to the iconic tree of Andalusia, the olive (in this case the uncultivated ancient variety “Acebuche”), which is reborn here in a new habitat, whereas the two side installations invoke the plant decorations of the Mihrab. For these two flanking designs we created wind-swept curtains of palms and esparto grasses. The original mosque had open alcoves to allow the sound of prayer to reach the women outside (women were not allowed within the walls). In winter, woven esparto curtains covered the openings to keep heat inside.

This work is both a devotional depiction of an imagined future beyond the anthropocene and tomb for a lost place. Inversions points our gaze to an imaginary landscape resilient enough to live on in unimaginable extreme heat and weather.