When the Geraniums Bloom

Description: When the Geraniums Bloom is an exhibition by artist Hande Sever, who recalls her mother’s experience of the 1980 Turkish coup d'état through plants, soil, and sound. During the coup, prisons became synonymous with torture centers—the most notorious of which were Metris, Diyarbakır, and Ulucanlar. The artist’s mother was held in Metris Military Prison. While incarcerated, she planted beans as a reminder of the outside world and of her former life, in which she tended geraniums on her balcony. Through her mother’s narrative, Sever’s exhibition examines the state of exception that forced the outdoor act of gardening into an interior, confined space, while unearthing the historical events that gave rise to the poetic symbolism of the geranium within the student movement. The exhibition weaves together the complexities of botanical symbolism and its resonance in poetry, revealing how these meanings shifted under the influence of U.S. interventions in West Asia during the Cold War. The artistic research for When the Geraniums Bloom was commissioned as an artist research publication by X-TRA Contemporary Art Journal.

Materials: Lima beans, 288 water glasses, steel strap hangers, text, m-audio speaker. Sound: an arrangement of Concierto de Aranjuez.

Image Description: Installation views, ‘Hande Sever: When the Geraniums Bloom’, Visitor Welcome Center Los Angeles, 2019. Photo: Josh Schaedel