Gabriela Oberkofler: Apit étoilé – a growing archive Cat. Villa Merkel Esslingen

“The bean is the star” and the book is telling us a lot about Ecological Seeding, Gardening, and Solidarity Farming. And then, in an inimitable way, the artist draws an inner program of the collected as well as the stored. For a while now, Gabriela Oberkofler has been making use of fine-tipped pens when drawing. They offer light-resistant inks. They were also used in the series "Pflanzenpalaver." The pens allow for very closely spaced lines to be drawn in a compact arrangement. Extremely delicate textures can be achieved in this way, inviting the viewers to take a close look and immerse themselves in all the graphic abbreviations. It’s almost as if one were to lose oneself in them, as if one were being absorbed into the dynamic hatching and richly detailed structures of lines that are on display. And because nothing—neither objects nor plants, neither insects nor rhizomes of the mushrooms—is defined by contours but instead exclusively by various shaped surface structures, the drawings simultaneously acquire a painterly appearance.

Elisabeth Pircher trained in the areas of braiding, permaculture and wildflower floristry, Elisabeth Pircher lives with and in her permaculture garden in southern Tyrol. Ever since 2017, she has been presenting courses in the aforementioned areas. Moreover, she designs decorations for various occasions and enjoys sharing her acquired knowledge with others. Mathias von Mirbach an innovative pioneer in the field of agricultural solidarity in Germany is a master agriculturalist and has been active since 1995 as a co-founder of the Kattendorfer Hof near Hamburg. There he is responsible for farming, the raising of cattle, and commercial management. Christiane Mennicke-Schwarz is art historian, curator and has been the director of the Kunsthaus Dresden since 2003. She has realized a large number of exhibitions on international contemporary art. Moreover, together with her team she developed diverse formats ranging from the classic group exhibition all the way to artistic interventions in rural and urban spaces, including allotment gardens. Marlies Ortner is the founder of the The Therapy Garden and a specialist for permaculture. Moreover, she is a representative of the ‘Garden of Diversity’ at the E.R.D.E. ‘Austrian Institute for Applied Eco-Education’. In her text, she presents a retrospect of almost thirty years of vigorous involvement with all sorts of seed stores in her Garden of Diversity, and she elucidates issues involving the basic principles and practice of seed-gardening. Gabriela Oberkofler, born in Bolzano in 1975, is a German-Italian artist, she lives and works in Stuttgart. Her central artistic theme is nature and its preservation from imminent destruction. With the growing project Mobile Seed Archive, she sets a sign against the seed giants and shows possibilities how their certification and power striving can be countered by aspects of the grassroots movement. Jan Sneyd is the expert in the Swabian variety of wheat known as ‘Dickkopf-Landweizen’ taught at the Hochschule fu¨r Wirtschaft und Umwelt in Nu¨rtingen-Geislingen. He conducts research into old, regional varieties of grains. Jan Sneyd shares responsibility for multiyear measures for recultivating old varieties in Baden-Wu¨rttemberg. In the context of processing their yields, he collaborates with the Ba¨ckerhaus Veit in Bempflingen. Harald Gasser cultivates on his mountain farm at the southern Tyrolean site of Barbian unusual rarities from the garden of nature. With some eight hundred forgotten or uncommon varieties of fruit and vegetables, he makes his remarkable contribution to the preservation and protection of biodiversity. Moreover, he works to prevent the disappearance of old species. Harald Gasser promotes harmony between nature, land and culture. Before the outbreak of the Corona pandemic, he had two or three employees who assisted him in working on the farm, which consists of four hectares. Andreas Baur Since 2001, Andreas Baur is director of the Villa Merkel, Galerie der Stadt Esslingen, which he has shaped together with his team through exhibitions and publications as an institution for current international contemporary art. There he has supervised projects with such artists as Mark Dion, Darren Almond, Melanie Smith, Willie Doherty and Emily Jacir; in addition, he has developed the concepts for thematic group exhibitions. Together with his team, he established the format GOOD SPACE. Roman Lenz is the dean at Hochschule fu¨r Wirtschaft und Umwelt Nu¨rtingen-Geislingen and also a co-founder of the ‘Gene Bank’, a network of variety-rescuers as well as promoters of the diversity of crop plants with a focus on Baden-Wu¨rttemberg. His work focuses on applied research into ecology and agriculture, the calculation of regional and communal ecological balance sheets, and the development of course modules for environmental and agricultural information technology. Since 2007 Irina Zacharias, a passionate tomato-gardene

Andreas Baur: The Bean is the Star Harald Gasser: “Biodiversity manages things much better” Roman Lenz: Old Varietis, Rediscovered Taste – Examples of Endangered Crops to the “Gene Bank” Christiane Mennicke-Schwarz: On Curatorial Activity in Natur Surroundings. The for Paths towards Coexistance Mathias von Mirbach: “The strange thing is that everthing works!” – about Agricultural Solidarity Marlies Ortner: Seeds from the Home Garden – Decentralized and Diverse / Principles and Practice Elisabeth Pircher: “Mäuseohr-Habichtskraut – a miracle of nature” Jan Sneyd: “And this is how a sample loaf of bread looks …” Irina Zacharias: “Five hundred species of chili and paprika”