Goldenrod is an exhibition of new and existing work made by artist ZHENG Bo, in collaboration with plants and people in Shanghai.  In a collection of drawings and a video installation, Zheng Bo and his collaborators attempt acts of intimacy through embodied knowing and lovemaking with plants. A workshop with gardeners, thinkers, artists, and designers imagines a potential site for social and political experimentation by gathering plants and people in the form of a garden. With these works, we move through looking, touching, thinking, building - and sometimes eating, to trouble our relationships with plants as emblems of Nature, as native/invasive species, and as figures in histories of colonialism, capitalism, and socialism. Together, these works ask us to consider plants as models of being-in-the-world and as equal agents in the making of our world. 

Goldenrod further searches the many registers of Nature's meaning and representation with talks by cultural studies scholar ZHU Yu, artist-scholar Elaine Gan, and theorist XIANG Zairong. 

Goldenrod and its related events are presented as the first season of The (Invisible) Garden, a two-year artistic research program that inquires into the garden as a method that shapes our understanding of Nature and our relationships to other species. For four seasons, from Fall 2019 through Spring 2021, the ICA at NYU Shanghai will present artists, thinkers, and practitioners, through exhibitions, events, and a publication, to consider the garden and ask how might we denature Nature?

PUBLIC EVENTS

• THU, 10 OCT, 18:00 – 20:00 
  Opening Reception
   
• SAT, 12 OCT, 14:00 – 15:30 
  Artist Talk by Zheng Bo (Chinese with English interpretation)
  
  
• SAT, 2 NOV, 14:00 – 15:30 
  Talk by Zhu Yu (Chinese with English interpretation)
  
  
• WED, 27 NOV, 12:30 – 14:00 
  Talk by Elaine Gan (English)
  
  
• MON, 9 DEC, 18:00 – 19:30 
  Talk by Xiang Zairong (English)

STUDY SESSIONS
Join a discussion group, focusing on one work in one hour, facilitated by ICA curators.

• THU, 24 OCT  13:00 – 14:00 (English)
• SAT, 9 NOV  14:00 – 15:00 (English)
• THU, 14 NOV  13:00 – 14:00 (Chinese)
• SAT, 30 NOV  14:00 – 15:00 (Chinese)

Related public events were made possible, in part, by the NYU Shanghai Arts and Sciences Events Committee and the Zaanheh Project.  

Goldenrod, an exhibition by Zheng Bo, is organized by Michelle Yeonho Hyun, with the support of Iris Zhu and additional support by I Teng Ho. Design by The Exercises / Lu Liang. Related public events were made possible, in part, by the NYU Shanghai Arts and Sciences Events Committee and the Zaanheh Project. Special thanks to Sproutworks for their collaboration and in-kind sponsorship