co-creative connections 1.1
ongoing the my plant teacher project

Sydhavnstippen Copenhagen SV 2025
brick
9670 x 6750 mm
stone setting
sydhavnstippen
copenhagen sv

in the project my plant teacher, artisan tina ratzer collaborates with the south african plant lobster bush / coleus neochilus. the plant’s strong scent captivated her back in 2018 – a sensory experience that has become the seed for a longer artistic collaboration. the project is about understanding and celebrating plants as expressions of nature’s profound wisdom.

using an electronic device, we can hear the plant’s vibrations and see them in the form of graphs. based on these graphs, ratzer has created a work – a kind of basic form – as a shared artistic expression, where the plant not only acts as a motif, but as an active co-creator of a process. as a weaver, she discovered parallels between the plant’s graphic measurements and the navajo weavers’ rhythmic pattern construction – echoing nature’s own weaving. this connection inspired the format co-creative connections 1.0. 

over the summer, she has transformed the work sf 1.0 into soil at sydhavns tippen in copenhagen sv – a wild natural and cultural area. using rubble collected on site, the work is now marked in the landscape as sf 1.1. in addition, she has collected seeds from native plants such as willowherb and yarrow, plants that already grow on the site, for sowing in the work, which can take shape organically over time – in dialogue with the weather, plants, animals, and people. the process challenges familiar patterns and opens up for co-creation with other species in the anthropocene era.

thanks to the danish arts and design workshops for the work residency during the process.

the project is supported by the esther and jep fink memorial fund, the danish jubilee fund of 1968, and the danish arts foundation.