Planetarische Bauern

Quechua artist and researcher Daniela Zambrano Almidón (born 1993 in Lima, Peru; lives in Berlin) and artist Åsa Sonjasdotter (born 1966 in Helsingborg, Sweden; based between Berlin and rural southern Sweden) share a vision of the potato as a powerful symbol of migration, care and earthly connectedness. Their ongoing collaborative research project Papitas Taypuycha – Earthing Potatoes, first shown at the Singapore Biennale 2022, honours the beauty of its cultivation as an ethical-aesthetic practice. In the courtyard of Moritzburg Castle, they’ve erected a walk-through monument to the politics of the potato. By cultivating plants and stories of Papas/Potatoes/Kartoffeln, it forges connections between the Central Andean region of Huánuco and central Germany, and beyond. Heirloom varieties cultivated in Europe since the colonization of Abya Yala (an Indigenous name for the Americas) grow at the base of each post in the circular installation. Bearing the colours of the rainbow, the potatoes appear like heraldic emblems, evoking both the German peasants’ flag of freedom and the Indigenous Wiphala flag – signifying 500 years of resistance and the continuing struggle for the right to farm freely, fairly, and without oppression.