Necroflora

Statement:

Necroflora, meaning “dead flower,” is the title of a curatorial-archival project that, through a historical and research-based framework and a critical approach, seeks to examine the evolution and various modes of representing the “flower” as an object within the history of art.

In the exhibition section of Necroflora, artists from different media and generations have been brought together in an attempt to move beyond the traditional modes of representing the flower as a beautiful object by expanding its semantic possibilities.///

NECROFLORA

It is born / it sprouts / it blooms / it scatters and brings forth life. It is praised to the point of death, yet precisely at the briefest moment of its beauty, youth, and splendor, it withers toward death on a steep descent. 

If it has died a natural death, it blooms there and scatters there too, and through its death, ensures the survival of its kind. But if it has died an unnatural death, it transforms into countless forms.

It becomes an adornment for burial and funeral rites, and an ornament of union and birth. It lends dignity and reverence to death and, if only for a moment, adorns life. 

It is plucked from among its kind / falls alone and, beside its new companions (all of whom have died once before), is arranged anew.

It becomes poison and perfume and antidote / it is wounded / it wounds and inflicts wounds.

It plays contradictory roles / is inscribed upon everything and, at the hands of artists great and small throughout history, is reproduced and (perhaps) expanded.

It penetrates the heart of culture (though not quite as deeply as into the heart of the earth), and, imbued with it and aided by the perseverance of time, spins intricate layers of meaning around itself, like nested cocoons, and becomes something beyond itself. 

It becomes symbolic, and thus takes on countless forms.

It is archived so that it may attain rank. It takes the place of the gods and is temporarily worshipped.

Of course, at the same time, it is hollowed out from within / becomes a cliché / becomes worn out / falls underfoot.

And in its wake, its meanings too are entirely consumed.

But always;

It grows from the earth..

and

It sprouts from blood..

Hoofar Haghighi

Summer 2026