Cheng-Yen Yu – Geopoetics: Plant Memory and Fictional Archaeology (Germany Chapter)

On Saturday 27 June at 12.30 pm, our scholarship holder Cheng-Yen Yu will open an exhibition of his works, which were created in Eckernförde. His paintings combine textures, materials, colours and finishes to form works of art which, under the concept of ‘Fictional Archaeology’, bring together what was, what is and what may be.

Plants exist not only as forms of life within nature, but also as carriers of time, geography, and cultural memory. In Geopoetics: Plant Memory and Fictional Archaeology, plants are approached as perceptual mediators situated between materiality and memory. Their presence traverses land, the body, and lived experience, leaving traces of accumulated time.

This exhibition centers on the Geopoetry – Germany series, which focuses on seven plant species encountered through everyday life in Germany: Drooping Star-of-Bethlehem, Marto Rose, Dandelion, Lithodora diffusa, White Dame’s Violet, and Crocus. These plants were not selected for their botanical significance or symbolic status, but emerged from the artist’s experiences of walking, dwelling, and observing. Growing along roadsides, residential gardens, vacant urban spaces, and suburban meadows, they become traces of movement, place, and geographical memory.

In contrast to the celebrated flowers of East Asian traditions—such as peony, orchid, plum blossom, or chrysanthemum—these plants belong to the realm of ordinary and often overlooked flowers. They carry no established cultural symbolism, yet respond quietly to local environments and seasonal cycles. Their presence resonates with the Chinese saying “Even a tiny grain aspires to bloom like the peony,” suggesting that small and humble forms of life need not become celebrated flowers in order to flourish within their own conditions.

Within the works, plants are no longer treated as objects of representation but as structures through which knowledge, experience, and material memory accumulate. Using calcium carbonate, soil, minerals, clay, fossil powder, and construction materials, the paintings develop layered and relief-like surfaces that evoke geological strata and archaeological remains. Through processes of sedimentation, cracking, and accumulation, material itself becomes a record of time, while plant forms gradually emerge through transformation rather than depiction.

The exhibition adopts “fictional archaeology” as a methodological framework, considering contemporary plants and materials as speculative artifacts from the future. The works appear simultaneously as botanical specimens and unidentified archaeological fragments, oscillating between reality and imagination, past and future. Viewing thus shifts beyond the recognition of images toward an excavation of material, memory, and temporality.

Through the intersection of plants, materials, and geological layers, Geopoetics: Plant Memory and Fictional Archaeology reconsiders the changing relationships between humans and land, nature and culture. These ordinary flowers, growing quietly within borders, margins, and overlooked spaces, do not aspire to become celebrated blooms; instead, they continue to flourish within their own landscapes and seasons.

PHOTO1 : Geopoetry – Germany (Marto Rose), 2026, mixed media on Canvas, 35x35cm
PHOTO2 : Geopoetry – Germany (Dandelion), 2026, mixed media on Canvas, 35x35cm
PHOTO3 : Geopoetry – Germany (Drooping Star-of-Bethlehem), 2026, mixed media on Canvas, 35x35cm