“[Plants] have transformed for good the face of our planet (…). It is through them and with their help that our planet produced its atmosphere and makes breath possible”—Emanuele Coccia

We are entangled in a world created by plants, bound to them materially, culturally and emotionally. They decorate human celebrations of birth, union, or departure; they populate our shared homes, exhaling the oxygen we inhale. Silent Autumn turns to the world of plants to reflect on the chemical threads that bind the web of life, as well as their continuous transformation. The colors of foliage and flowers that compose these artworks place them within the temporality of Earthly seasons. Yet, how might the hues of our world altered in the Anthropocene, carrying the traces of the Earth’s increasing toxification? 

Studio Tomás Saraceno occupies the factory building on the former site of photographic film and dye manufacturer Actien-Gesellschaft für Anilin-Fabrication (AGFA). In its years as a manufacturer of dyestuffs, AGFA attempted to faithfully reproduce pigments of nature, most notably in 1878 when it first invented the dye Malachitgrün (Malachite green), named after the mineral that bore a similarly intense hue. As other pigments were likewise derived, nature was inadvertently woven into the processes of patenting and commodification of color, its fuchsin and gentian violet dyes named after flowering plants, for example. However, Agfa’s quest for natural truths was already tainted by industrial falsehood: residual chemicals from each pigment’s production would be deposited into the factory’s nearby river Spree, contaminating adjacent soils and all those who fed off of them. 

Silent Autumn confronts us with the chemical histories embedded in pigments, a poetic trace of debris. Visitors are invited to observe and re-observe the artwork across its own autonomous narration of nature’s overlooked mutability. Choosing not to halt that process of exposure, the leaves and flowers will continue to transform throughout their presentation. In a globalized world where the earth has been altered at rhythms of extinction, where habits of consumption have reached unbearable levels, the artwork asks: can a poetics of (im)mutability offer a means to remedy history’s divergent quest for natural truth?