On June 6^th at 6pm, Janis Dellarte’s exhibition ‘Nós Enredamentos, Entretecidos Despojos’ opens at the Botanical Gardens of the University of Lisbon.

This exhibition, composed of five sculptures organically rendered with the Botanical Garden’s ecosystem, materializes the artist’s response to the particular historical moment we live in, navigating between the (im)morality of pollution/trash and its plastic-symbolic beauty, setting the apparent, perhaps inescapable, paradox of using this pollution on her artistic practice.

Summoned by the floating islands of trash in our oceans, product of the today’s massive over- consumption, Janis rescues the marine waste that comes to shore– physical and symbolic material, entangled in her lines and interweaved in her knots -, to create hybrid beings: testimonies of ancestral knowledge, of new and old memories. A call for a greater, more participative and solidary, individual consciousness.

This intervention in the Botanical Garden of the National Museum of Natural History and Science seeks to reinforce the core educational mission of the space, using it as a vehicle for the collective reflection on the vital importance of preserving natural ecosystems and their vulnerability regarding human actions.

On the opening event, Janis invites artists – performers, dancers and musicians – to perform a ceremony / neo-ritual / pilgrimage presenting the pieces through the Botanical Garden.