Tulip Mania II

Year: 2024
Location: Orangerie at Zone2Source, Amsterdam
Country: the Netherlands
Client: Kumi Hiroi

#Woodworks

Artist Kumi Hiroi explores the diversity of imagery associated with language, such as "images evoked by words" and "words evoked by images." She is particularly interested in the biases, preconceptions, prejudices, and discrimination inherent in these diverse interpretations.

In recent years she has been investigating the geographical, historical and economic contexts of iconic images that exist within the relationship between nature and humans. She conducts research that combines literature reviews, interviews, and fieldwork, with the process itself becoming the language of her work. She expresses her findings by integrating various media—such as text, photography, video, textiles, and glass.

Tulip Mania II consists of video works and glass sculptures about tulip bulbs production and labour referring to a speech by an economist Dr. Milton Friedman and to a text by Dr. Leonard E. Read. She uses video footage that she has documented in the Netherlands and Poland. The work shows that neoliberalism and market fundamentalism are deeply rooted in our lives. This aspect can also be seen in the field of organic cultivation of bulbs. The work is supported by seasonal workers from Poland and the demand for expensive organic bulbs accounts for only 0,22% of the bulb market. Along with this fact, the work suggests that organic bulb cultivation is not established solely on the basis of human collaboration and trade, but in the context of human-ecological relations.

STUDIO EMIT and Minerva Meubelen developed the woodworks for the glass scultpures together with Kumi Hiroi for the installation of her exhibition Tulip Mania II shown at the Orangerie - Zone2Source, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

All photography © Tijl Akkermans