Anne Geene (born 1983, Breda, NL) lives and works in The Hague. Commenting on her work for h3h biennial, Anne says: “The symbolic value we attach to plants might be as old as humanity itself. Red roses represent love, ferns represent sincerity, ivy represents faithfulness. For a long time, I’ve been collecting plants growing in notable places and taking pictures of plants belonging to famous people. Take the grass I’ve collected from the centre of Feyenoord stadium, or the plants growing on a work of art by Richard Serra, on the Parthenon, or in the garden of Arjen Robben.
Being placed in this context, the plants take on a relic-like status. I thought this would be perfect match for the h3h biennial – after all, it takes place in the Heilige Driehoek, on sacred ground. I’ve made relics out of the plants growing on this sacred soil, balancing on the thin line that straddles sense and nonsense, veneration and idolatry.”
Anne Geene uses photography as a basis to research, collect, take stock of, archive, and organise the world around her. She later analyses and categorises her findings according to an apparent logic – apparent, since her interpretation of the information is a strictly personal nod to our urge to organise, understand and explain. Though her projects may seem to exhibit aspirations for scientific objectivity, Geene instead shows a world that’s coloured by personal experiences.