BIO 28 DOUBLE AGENT Do You Speak Flower?

Double Agent: Do You Speak Flower? transcends the traditional exhibition format, serving as a multi-faceted proclamation that engages with the past and present and intertwines design, art, and cinema. Often flirting with popular culture, Double Agent: Do You Speak Flower? explores the unsuspected tactics of concealment that can lurk beneath the delicate, romantic language of floriography. Floral ornaments have gained in polysemy throughout the twentieth century: examples of their political implications abound, from Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Flower Power’ to the 1974 Carnation Revolution in Portugal, which put an end to forty years of Salazarist dictatorship, and the British custom of wearing remembrance poppies. This shows that the language of flowers reaches far beyond the gallantry embedded in Victorian floristry.

BIO28 shows that the association of women and ornaments, specifically in the analogy of the woman-flower, has often engendered astonishing works of camouflage beyond the hyper-sexualised metonymy of female genitalia and flowers claimed by scientists since the 19th century. At the same time, the woman-as-flower association proliferated in the arts, literature and poetry. Confined to the status of sexually pure and passive, and hence desirable, objects, women were depicted surrounded by bouquets of flowers in their homes or in flower gardens, symbolising their place in the world.

Double Agent: Do You Speak Flower? shows the manner in which a feminist floriography has emphasised the importance of strategies, tricks, and other deceptive simulacra to convey its messages. Invited to decode messages hidden in the language of flowers, in an ultimate twist, the visitor discovers that a palimpsestic flower entails a political turn as it reinvests the aesthetic trivialisation of floral variations. Between appearances and mystification, the visitor realises that the manipulation of form is as important as ever when it comes to fighting oppression. Drawing on a non-exhaustive range of critical and speculative associations, the political and feminist steganography operates under the cover of the seemingly neutral and seductive banality of floral language. Combining aesthetics and feminism, the double agent that is embodied by cunning is revealed in the final exhibiting spaces.

Curatorial Team

Alexandra Midal, Curator

Emma Pflieger, Assistant Curator

“I am thrilled to work with the BIO team for the next edition of the Ljubljana Design Biennial. This event provides a unique opportunity to engage in a dialogue on historical and contemporary design issues. My commitment is to illuminate alternative design perspectives and the diverse voices within the field from an international standpoint. I am deeply interested in reevaluating the concept of a Double Agent, which will uncover itself as a narrative linking a seemingly mundane flower to its hidden, cryptic, and secretive role in shaping identities and politics. I am excited to showcase that BIO is not just an exhibition but also a platform, a laboratory for exploration, and a crossroads for research and societal engagement throughout its entire duration.”

-Alexandra Midal, Curator of BIO 28

“I am thrilled to work with the BIO team for the next edition of the Ljubljana Design Biennial. This event provides a unique opportunity to engage in a dialogue on historical and contemporary design issues. My commitment is to illuminate alternative design perspectives and the diverse voices within the field from an international standpoint. I am deeply interested in reevaluating the concept of a Double Agent, which will uncover itself as a narrative linking a seemingly mundane flower to its hidden, cryptic, and secretive role in shaping identities and politics. I am excited to showcase that BIO is not just an exhibition but also a platform, a laboratory for exploration, and a crossroads for research and societal engagement throughout its entire duration.”

-Alexandra Midal, Curator of BIO 28

Exhibition

Political, bold, vibrant, and provocative, Double Agent: Do You Speak Flower? examines the figure of floriography, a code hidden within flowers to transmit secret information. The core of this transdisciplinary and multifaceted exhibition scrutinizes the pivotal role of floriography used by women to portray their identities. In that sense, flowers pave the way for antagonistic and alternative interpretations of both the meanings and the context in which they are decrypted.

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Exhibition BIO 28, Photo: Lucija Rosc

Exhibition 60 years of BIO, Foto: Lucija Rosc

Exhibition BIO 28, Photo: Lucija Rosc

Production Platform

BIO28 Double Agent: Do You Speak Flower? features a production platform developed with the Centre for Creativity, showcasing interdisciplinary teams mentored by renowned creatives. These teams explore the coded language of flowers and their connection to marginalised communities.

Melting Through

Melting Through is a project by the production platform Beewax Studio and Grotto as part of BIO 28: Double Agent: Do You Speak the Language of Flowers?, conceived by multidisciplinary artists Katarina Babič Derenda, Mori Sikora, Beti Frim, and Ines Sekač. For BIO28, they joined forces as the XenoScapers collective and, together with their mentor matali crasset, meaningfully combined beekeeping, connectivity, and collective responsibility toward working with natural materials that do not exploit shared resources.

Installation Melting Through at the BIO28 Double Agent: Do You Speak Flower? exhibition. The installation and a participatory project features a video composed of footage of bees, flowers and nature, combined with 3D scans of beeswax pieces. This video is projected onto a wooden panel framed with beeswax. Photo: Lucija Rosc

Not Erased

The production platform Not Erased, mentored by Dimitri Zephir and Florian Dach, brings together Anna Odulinska and Nika Van Berkel, who have developed the project (Un)woven Tales, in which they have meaningfully and visually compellingly interwoven design, craftsmanship, and awareness-raising. This work draws parallels between Slovenia’s lace-making heritage and the erasure of stateless persons in 1991, while questioning notions of nationality and belonging.

Spatial installation of the (un)woven tales. Anna Odulińska and Nika van Berkel captured the stories of Slavica, Vladica and Irfan into a film with the help of editor Anna Dobrowodzka, and sound designer Jaka Nežmah. Photo: Lucija Rosc for MAO

As Time Swallows Time

The production group As Time Swallows Time, part of the creative team El Último Grito, has created the experimental film I’ll be Poppy, which blends elements of documentary and fiction. The documentary, produced by OSM films with the assistance of Maja Šuštarič, examines the 60-year evolution of the BIO Biennial and its creative processes.

El Último Grito (BIO 28): As Time Swallows Time / Ko čas izginja v času

Movement for Public Speech

The production group Movement for Public Speech has launched the project Murmuring Orchids by the Prostorož collective, under the mentorship of Polonca Lovšin. The project features an installation that uses orchids as a metaphor for women who are feeling the effects of the housing crisis.

Installation ‘Murmuring Orchids’ at the Museum of Architecture and Design - MAO. Photo: Lucija Rosc

Cattleya – Don’t Teach a Flower How to Bloom

The YASA Collective, under the mentorship of Grashina Gabelmann and Michelle Phillips, revisits the floral metaphor in their work Cattleya – Don’t Teach a Flower How to Bloom, which explores deeply ingrained stereotypes about femininity and gender roles, drawing parallels between women and flowers. Through posters and an online platform, the project deconstructs these stereotypes and reveals the resilience of both flowers and women.

YASA Collective printed 7000 posters for the Double Agents, that the visitors can take home. Photo: Lucija Rosc

ACCOMPANYING PROJECTS

BIO28 Symposium – Design Perspectives

An event dedicated to discussing the key challenges and transformations in design over the past decade, as well as its future. It will focus on three themes: New Priorities, New Territories, and New Stages. Participants in the discussions and lectures: Ajdin Bašić, Jan Boelen, Aric Chen, Tina Gregorič, Pia Groleger, Thomas Geisler, Rok Kuhar, Beatrice Leanza, Justin McGuirk, Barbara Predan, Luka Stepan, and Jane Withers.

Performance 16M2, Two-Bedroom Apartment + Terrace

This is a group performance created as part of the BIO28 production platform project Murmuring Orchids, performed by third-year students in the Visual Arts and Design program at the Faculty of Education, University of Primorska. It addresses the housing crisis, rife with empty promises, that many—especially young people—face on a daily basis. Authors: Benedik Ana, Bratušek Jakob, Gjorgjievska Iva, Hajšek Neža, Kante Stefanie, Petrov Isidora, Pibernik Eric, Pregelj Svit, Pucer Tinkara, Stević Danaja, Strniša Magdalena, Šifrar Blažka, Špur Lan, Weber Ela.

Publication

The book Do You Speak Flower? by author and curator Alexandra Midal was published on the occasion of the 28th Biennial of Design, BIO28 Double Agent: Do You Speak Flower? Double Agent: Do You Speak Flower? explores a field at the intersection of flowers and steganography. Steganography describes the practice of concealing secret information within an image, message or physical object to avoid detection. From a technical point of view, steganography has the particularity of being invisible, unlike cryptography, which consists of encrypting information in order to conceal it and therefore points to the existence of a message to be decrypted. More simply, cryptography hides the meaning whereas steganography hides the very existence of a secret.

Through a number of case studies at the crossroads of design, art and architecture, often flirting with popular culture, this essay surveys the range of concealment practices employed by designers and artists, but above all by dissidents, revolutionaries and various kinds of agitators who want to communicate in secret without attracting suspicion. More specifically, it explores the unsuspected tactics of concealment that can lurk beneath the delicate, romantic language of floriography.

Curator and Editor:Alexandra Midal

Copy editing:Nuša Zupanc

Graphic Design:Rafaela Dražić

Typographies:Akzir, Satpo

Published by:Museum of Architecture and Design (MAO) and Les presses du réel, Dijon, France Ljubljana, 2024. 105 pp., eng.

ISBN:978-2-37896-563-1

In stock

The book Do You Speak Flower? by author and curator Alexandra Midal was published on the occasion of the 28th Biennial of Design, BIO28 Double Agent: Do You Speak Flower? Double Agent: Do You Speak Flower? explores a field at the intersection of flowers and steganography. Steganography describes the practice of concealing secret information within an image, message or physical object to avoid detection. From a technical point of view, steganography has the particularity of being invisible, unlike cryptography, which consists of encrypting information in order to conceal it and therefore points to the existence of a message to be decrypted. More simply, cryptography hides the meaning whereas steganography hides the very existence of a secret.

Through a number of case studies at the crossroads of design, art and architecture, often flirting with popular culture, this essay surveys the range of concealment practices employed by designers and artists, but above all by dissidents, revolutionaries and various kinds of agitators who want to communicate in secret without attracting suspicion. More specifically, it explores the unsuspected tactics of concealment that can lurk beneath the delicate, romantic language of floriography.

Curator and Editor:Alexandra Midal

Copy editing:Nuša Zupanc

Graphic Design:Rafaela Dražić

Typographies:Akzir, Satpo

Published by:Museum of Architecture and Design (MAO) and Les presses du réel, Dijon, France Ljubljana, 2024. 105 pp., eng.

ISBN:978-2-37896-563-1

In stock

BIO 28 TEAM

Dates:21. 11. 2024 - 6. 4. 2025

Curatorial team:Alexandra Midal (Curator) Emma Pflieger (Assistant curator)

Head of BIO 28: Editor of BIO 28: Production Platform Manager: Exhibition and Logistic Coordinator : Curator and Editor: Communications Officer: Exhibition Design: Graphic Design:Hana Čeferin, Anja Radović, Maša Ogrin Nuša Zupanc Pavlič Mojca Mihailovič-Škrinjar, Pia Groleger Matjaž Brulc Alexandra Midal Manca Košir Studio Sadar Rafaela Dražić

Director, Museum of Architecture and Design Head of the Centre for CreativityMaja Vardjan Anja Zorko

Mentors and advisors

Production Platform Mentors

matali crasset
dach&zephir (Dimitri Zephir in Florian Dach)
El Ultimo Grito (Roberto Feo in Rosario Hurtado)
Polonca Lovšin
Michelle Phillips in Grashina Gabelmann

Advisors

Barbara Predan
Michelle Millar Fisher
Renata Salecl
Oli Stratford

Authors

Carole Baijings, Maja Bajević, Tristan Bartolini, Jani Bavčer, Matei Bejenaru, Zoe Beloff, John Bingley Garland, Karl Blossfeldt, Robert and Reinhold Brendel, Camille Dandelot, Jules Chéret, Segundo de Chomón, Jean Comandon and Pierre de Fonbrune, Joe Colombo, Roger Corman, Laura Couto Rosado / mudac, matali crasset, dach&zephir, Thomas Demand, William Kennedy Dickson, Rafaela Dražič, Ray and Charles Eames, Harry C. Ellis, El Último Grito, Grashina Gabelmann (Flaneur Magazine) and Michelle Phillips (Yukiko), Laureline Galliot, Martino Gamper, Jonathan Glazer, Arthur Gillet, YMER & MALTA/ Benjamin Graindorge, Vincent Grange, Roberto Greco / mudac, Axelle Grégoire, Alice Guy, Anna Hulačová, Marguerite Humeau, Janez Jager

Jakub Jansa, Jože Karlovšek, Kapwani Kiwanga, Gašper Kunšič, Emma Kunz, Tanja Lažetić, Malle Leis, Olivier Lebrun, Urs Lehni and Kurti Vool, Stefan Lorant, Polonca Lovšin, Rosa Luxemburg, Robert Mapplethorpe, Maruša Mazej, Angela Marzullo, Sarah Meyohas, Alexandra Midal, Alfons Mucha, Tilyen Mucik, M/M (Paris), Carlo Mollino, Olivier Mourgue, Matmos, Tony Oursler, Pierre Paulin, Réjean Peytavin, PfliegerFœglé, Joanna Piotrowska and Formafantasma, Cheryl Power and Andrew Syred, Walid Raad (The Atlas Group), Ana Ridler, Luca Rizzo, Marcin Rusak, Eero Saarinen, Elsa Sahal, Helene Schmitz, Ann Shelton, Antonija Kulčar Prut - Tonka, Noam Toran, Margaret Watts Hughes, Anna Zemánková, Radovan Jenko, Slavoj Žižek

Collaborators

Uroš Pangerc
Sara Ana Vrtovec
Ana Kandare
Blažka Kirm
Darja Pikovnik
Nikola Pongrac
Cvetka Požar
Špela Šubic
Natalija Lapajne in Maja Šuštaršič

Peter Žargi
Vida Jocif
Jason Blake
Matjaž Rozina in Tadej Golob
GC DPI in Društvo 27
Tanja Vergles
Ana Kuntarič Brodersen
Nela Kuhnová

Supporters

I Feel Slovenia, Institut Français, British Council, Goethe Institut,Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, life (Cankarjev dom), veleposlaništvo kraljevine Nizozemske, Delo, Mladina, Disegno, Večer, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Head-Geneve, Ma Space & Communication, Pritličje, LPP, Embajada de España en Eslovenia, Embassy of Sweden, Seča - vrt kaktusov, Klekljarsko društvo Ljubljana, Gardenia

NEWS ARCHIVE BIO 28

21.MAR 2025BIO 28

Design Perspectives: Symposium Concluding the 28th Biennial of Design

At the end of the 28th Design Biennial, we invite you to join us at the Design Perspectives Symposium, which will take place on 27 March 2025, from 14.30 to 20.00 at the Museum of Architecture and Design (MAO).

07.NOV 2024BIO 28

Visit 28.bio.si

We’re pleased to announce that the 28th Biennial of Design (BIO28) now has a new website! For all the latest news, events, and the full BIO28 program, visit 28.bio.si.

22.OCT 2024Authors

Meet the Architects: Studio Sadar

Studio Sadar is a Ljubljana-based architectural and design practice that has made an international mark across various sectors, including cultural, commercial, and residential projects. For BIO28, the studio is bringing its innovative design approach to the exhibition space, enhancing the experience and fostering meaningful interactions. Their commitment to creating engaging environments aligns seamlessly with the biennale's exploration of contemporary themes, making them an important addition to this year's event.

02.OCT 2024Authors

Meet the Graphic Designer: Rafaela Dražić

Rafaela Dražić is an award-winning visual communication designer, recognized for her work with cultural and non-governmental organizations worldwide. She is the creative force behind the graphic identity for BIO28.

27.SEP 2024BIO 28

BIO28 x Indigo Festival Ljubljana

The Indigo Festival Ljubljana will host Alexandra Midal, curator of the 28th Biennial of Design, on Wednesday, October 2, 2024, at Cukrarna in Ljubljana.

27.AUG 2024Authors

Meet the Assistant Curator | Emma Pflieger

Emma Pflieger is a French designer and co-founder of the innovative design studio Studio Pflieger-Foeglé, which employs a research-driven cross-disciplinary approach to craft spaces, installations, and graphic design.

14.AUG 2024Authors

Meet The Curator | Alexandra Midal

Alexandra Midal is a professor, historian, and artist-curator combining theory and practice.

28.JUN 2024BIO 28

Website of the 28th Biennial of Design: 28.bio.si

For all information regarding the BIO28 you can head over to our freshly designed site at 28.bio.si.

26.JUN 2024BIO 28

Meeting of the Production Platform

The review of the ideation phase of the Production platform work with teams, mentors, and curators.

07.MAR 2024BIO 28

Successful Conclusion of BIO28 Open Call: Double Agent – Do You Speak Flower?

We are delighted to announce the successful conclusion of the Open Call for participation in the BIO28 Produciton Platform.

31.JAN 2024BIO 28

Open Call – Double Agent: Do You Speak Flower?

The Museum of Architecture and Design (MAO) in collaboration with the Centre for Creativity is launching an Open Call for participation in Double Agent – the 28th Biennial of Design, curated by Alexandra Midal.

26.SEP 2023BIO 28

Alexandra Midal to curate the 28th Biennial of Design (BIO28)

BIO28: Double Agent, ⁠November 2024 – April 2025