I Never Promised You a Green Garden

Plants are all around us. In fields, urban areas or in living rooms they tell us about changes induced by climate change and modern agriculture. They testify the frightening loss of biodiversity going hand in hand with the agrochemical industry’s promises of a ‘better world’.

In her artwork, Eva-Maria Lopez maps these changes. Her projects I Never Promised You a Green Garden. and we resist. address the backstage of the ‘green business’ by subverting the marketing concepts of agrochemical companies and using their logos for ornaments: These ornamental designs look quite harmless and decorative, since they have similarities with motifs in folk art and mandalas – until one becomes aware that each single motif in this series consists of logos from companies that produce or sell glyphosate, or genetically modified plants.

The logos of these global players mostly employ floral motifs such as leaves or buds in order to reinforce their mottos promising a better world and “growth” – but this “growth” occurs at the cost of a huge damaging impact on our ecologies. Herbicides are promoted to “clean” and remove all undesired greenery from pathways, gardens, parks, railway tracks as well as in agriculture. The work’s title therefore takes up this contradiction: I Never Promised You a Green Garden. points to the promise of a “clean” more than a “green” garden, meanwhile the colour green is, ironically, still supposed to stand in for ecological sustainability and organic agriculture.