E.F.A. im Garten, 2015

The works of E.F.A. im Garten find their origin in a site just opposite Antje Majewski’s apartment in Berlin-Wedding. For forty years, community gardeners have planted fruits, vegetables, and flowers on this lot, which until now has been owned by the subdivision of Germany’s rail system that is responsible for agriculture. Recently sold to an investor, these gardens have since been dug up in order to make way for a large-scale self-storage facility. While now uncultivated, shrubs, lily of the valley, small maple trees, and sorrel from the former garden have taken temporary root on the land, spreading from the scars of excavation and turning a vacant lot in the middle of the city into an autonomous ecosystem.

As the grounds were cleared, the fallen remains of the former garden’s structures began to form ephemeral sculptural constellations, which Majewski has immortalized in photographs that will be presented in the gallery. In her studio, the artist has created sculptures out of individual planks salvaged from these demolished cabins, each of which also serves as the surface to which encaustic paint has been applied: natural colors – soot black, gold ochre, malachite, jade, lapis lazuli, madder lake, and crimson red – that for centuries have been extracted from soil, semi-precious stones, sea snails, and plants. For these sculptures and a large-format painting of the excavated land, Majewski employs variations on the same green, violet, and black color scheme used on the emblem of E.F.A. (Eco-Feminist Anarchism), the activist organization she founded. In showing her photographs and the painting of the lot alongside her sculptures, Majewski conflates the spatial and temporal spheres to create a complex site of memorial and silent protest.
(Press release neugerriemschneider)

Texts:
Andreas Schlaegel und Antje Majewski: Apples and Spice (2015)
Andreas Schlaegel und Antje Majewski: Viele Kerne (2015)

Exhibitions:
Bars and Cafés, Haubrok Foundation / Fahrbereitschaft, Berlin, DE, 2016
Locus Amoenus (with Sophie Reinhold), m+Projekt, Munich, DE
E.F.A. Im Garten, neugerriemschneider, Berlin, DE, 2015