Crystal Terrariums Workshop

Artist Samuel Wenceslau has been making incursions into the gardens of Palácio de Cristal in order to build an architectural and poetic interpretation of the place, but also to collect plants that can germinate inside a wardiana box, an 19th-century terrarium that recreates a particular ecosystem.
In the workshop, micro-landscapes were built, enclosed by an iron and glass structure, where participants added images that revisit the First Portuguese Colonial Exhibition.

Here, they reflected on ideas of possession and the exposing of bodies, but also on domestic objects as a metaphor for personal relics and collections. Ultimately, we sought to discuss themes such as the colonial domination of bodies and standardized logics of beauty and nature through these Crystal Terrariums.

Artist Samuel Wenceslau has a deep interest in nature, in particular Brazilian botany, exploring organic forms and lines in collages, drawings, photographs, paintings, objects and other graphic creations. As he is also artistic director and producer of the Kebraku Collective, Wenceslau created the Graphic Studiolo, a graphic inventory of natural forms from the flora of South America and, more recently, Europe. “My plates look botanical, but the classifications I used are all imagined,” he says. Apart from the technical side, he distinguishes himself from traditional botany by his refusal of perfection. He doesn’t look for leaves or flowers that are intact, but those that show the “interference of time and nature”.

Photography: D.R.