Who has the right to claim a flower? 

“Still Life with Flowers, 2024” is a participatory performance that invites the audience to co-create a flower composition as an exercise in privilege. The performance suggests that the focus on flowers in various art forms is a testament to power and presents moments when a claim on flowers challenges who is entitled to centre flowers in their art and in what way. 

In “Still Life with Flowers, 2024”, the discussion about flowers is a discussion about how one is expected to perform in a system of power. The performance’s argument is illustrated with several references: a 1890’s review of the Cercle des Femmes Peintres’ exhibition, published in La Jeune Belgique, whose author claims that “as long as women stick to an art similar to that of embroidery, it is exquisite, otherwise they lack the gift of composition”, and poems such as Noor Hindi’s "Fuck Your Lecture On Craft, My People Are Dying" that begins with the line “Colonizers write about flowers” and Hanif Abdurraqib’s "How Can Black People Write About Flowers at a Time Like This".