Manifesta 12 Palermo : the planetary garden. Cultivating coexistence

Throughout history, the city of Palermo has been a laboratory for diversity and cross-pollination. A continuous migration – from the Ancient Greeks, the Arabs and the Normans to the recent arrival from Northern Africa, South East Asia and the Middle East – has constantly redefined the city and its people. Palermos streets, architecture, parks, cultural legacy and personal histories are the result of a long-lasting syncretism of cultures across the Mediterranean and beyond.
In the 1875 painting View of Palermo by Francesco Lojacono in the collection of the GAM Museum in Palermo – nothing is indigenous. Olive trees came from Asia, aspen from the Middle East, eucalyptus from Australia, prickly pear from Mexico, loquat from Japan. Citrus trees a symbol of Sicily were introduced under Arab sovereignty. The botanical garden of Palermo, Orto Botanico, was founded in 1789 as a laboratory to nurture, study, test, mix and gather diverse species. Palermos Orto Botanico inspired Manifesta 12 to look at the idea of the garden, exploring its capacity to aggregate difference and to compose life out of movement and migration.
Gardens are places where diverse forms of life mix and adapt to co-exist. They allow for cross-pollination based on encounter. In 1997, a French botanist described the world as a planetary garden with humanity in charge of being its gardener. But how to tend to a world that is moved by invisible informational networks, transnational private interests, algorithmic intelligence, environmental processes and ever-increasing inequalities? Twenty years later, the metaphor of the planet as a manageable garden is still attractive, not as a space for humans to take control, but rather as a site where gardeners recognise their dependency on other species, and respond to climate, time, or an array of social factors, in a shared responsibility.