price of one lot in a poor neighborhood: 628 years growing potatoes on that lot
join us at Watershed on Thursday September 4, 6-10 pm, for the opening with Marina,
or on Friday at 6pm, for the film 628 Years of Potatoes
or on Sunday September 7, at 5pm, for a walk and screening at El Paseo Community Garden
In 2023, Marina Resende grew potatoes on a vacant lot in Berlin and harvested them with children and youth from the neighborhood. In a humorous and subversive way, the artist questions private ownership of land. Who should own the land: those who use it wisely or those who make the most profit from it? Marina Resende contrasts the prevailing property model with the Brazilian principle of usucapião: landless farmers acquire land by cultivating it.
Cultivating the ground, improvising a playground, impersonating the developer of a new ecological high-rise and finally passing for the owner herself, trying to sell the lot, the artist took on different positions towards the lot, exploring the dimensions of owning and producing value on land.
The artifacts and installation in the exhibition reflect on urban plants and the taxonomies of property and ecologies that constrain value, use and access in the modern Western city. The exhibition is accompanied by a vacant lot and speculation walk with the artist around Pilsen on September 7, departing from Watershed at 5pm. The film 628 Years of Potatoes (40’, directed with Vincent Jondeau), a poetic documentation of the site, screens at El Paseo Community Garden on September 7, at 7:30 pm.
Bio
Marina Resende Santos is an artist and researcher living in Berlin. Marina provokes questions about people’s agency towards techonological, economic and ecological systems, through public space interventions and research around what she names ‘eloquent sites.’ She has a BA in comparative literature from the University of Chicago and an MA in Spatial Strategies from the Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin. She teaches critical spatial practice, anti- and post-colonial perspectives for artistic and design practices at TU Berlin and the Bauhaus University Weimar. She was editor of Lumpen magazine in Chicago and is a member of the project space Make-up in Berlin.
Film synopsis
628 Years of Potatoes
France/Germany, 40 min, directed by Marina Resende, Vincent Jondeau
An urban wasteland in a poor, outlying district of Berlin becomes the site of a young woman’s unconventional quest. Neglected for years due to the exorbitant price demanded by its owner, the land comes back to life when the woman plants potatoes and beans, and street children join her in helping to transform the place. As she connects with the land, she embarks on a poetic and documentary investigation of its value.