Anita Hosseini: Rooted in Politics. Artistic Revisions of the History of the Rose

The cultivation of roses goes back to 5000 years ago. During this period, the rose was distinguished by its beauty, its enchanting fragrance and its thorns, but also by its pharmacological value and its symbolic meaning as a cultural asset that was and still is of global significance. In the course of its appropriation and symbolic transformation, the ornamental plant almost lost its physical presence and thus material existence and increasingly manifested itself as a symbol of love and passion. Based on the works of contemporary artists Amitis Motevalli, Sonya Schönberger, and Gabriella Hirst, the book project undertakes a revision of the cultural history of the rose and shows that, as a global commodity, it contains within itself a network of historical, historiographical, and sociocultural interrelations. Breaking through conventional associations, the project exposes the colonial history of botany, hegemonic processes of appropriation, the social, economic and ecological effects of globalization, as well as military undertakings and their memorial remembrance.

Anita Hosseini is a Research Associate of the research group Bilderfahrzeuge. Aby Warburg’s Legacy and the Future of Iconology at the Warburg Institute in London. She studied Art History, Social Psychology/Anthropology, and Gender Studies and holds a Ph.D. in Art History. Her research focuses on the spatial and temporal migration of images and objects, the relationship between art and the natural sciences, as well as on questions of historiography and the history of knowledge.