Ramification

Our planet has been fundamentally altered by human action for millennia. In the past century however, the rapid surge of the global population and reckless economic growth have driven change at an unprecedented pace. Natural habitats have been routinely corrupted by pollution causing what has been coined as the sixth mass extinction, while the  consequences of global warming become more palpable every day. In the midst of this ecological crisis, there is a pressing urgency to form beneficial alliances between humans and their non-human counterparts.

Plants usually expand through ramification, growing branching structures that become increasingly thinner and more intricate. A tree, for instance, subdivides its aerial structures into branches and twigs in order to extend its foliage efficiently. This fundamental botanical process also manifests itself at the scale of landscapes. A watershed, where small tributaries flow into rivers of increasingly wider size before reaching the sea, follows a similar logic. When extending, a ramified system curiously engages with some points of interests while neglecting others. This is similar to how landscape architects actually work, needing to measure their intervention, rejecting the superfluous and determining the minimum effort needed to implement the most effective change.

This exhibition displays the work of landscape architects, urbanists, biologists and students from various backgrounds and generations, who are – consciously or unconsciously – using the metaphor of ramification within their practices. Their work exemplifies how the understanding of natural processes allows us to cultivate constructive, even symbiotic relationships between humans and their living environment. They demonstrate the possibility and the responsibility to accommodate life within damaged or endangered territories in order to shape resilient ecosystems.