Advancing together
Advancing together presents graphics, objects and textiles organised around a narrative set within the $62,5 billion Bayer-Monsanto merger in 2017.
The adventure follows close friends and business partners y and n, who learn about the ambitions of Bayer, a German pharmaceutical and chemical company to buy US-American agricultural giant Monsanto. Using the potential of the all-cash $62,5 billion blockbuster deal with a $2 billion breakup fee, Advancing together explores the rhetorics of a company merger as a romance fiction.
Immersing in the language of love, hope and seduction, the narrative merges fiction and verbatim from Bayers portfolio and media campaign. Based on realities of the present, the storyline unfolds in a near future, cultivating traditions of science-fiction and speculative-fiction.
The imagery surrounding the narrative stems from theatre theory, 1950´s adult comic strips and a board game of snakes and ladders from the Collection of the V&A Museum of Childhood, London.
Advancing together, 2022, Public Fictions, Leverkusen, Performance Documentation and Installation View, Performed and read by Fiona Metscher, Drawings shown at Zentralantiquariat, Curated by Lisa Klosterkötter, Leverkusen, Photo: Public Fictions
Advancing together, 2020, Bruch und Dallas, Cologne, Installation view
Advancing together (Love Potion), 2019, Inkjet Print on Japanese Binding Paper, Styrofoam, 100 x 130 cm
Advancing together (Love Potion), 2019, Inkjet Print on Japanese Binding Paper, Styrofoam, 100 x 130 cm
Advancing together (the Monsanto files), 2019, Inkjet Print on Fine Art Photo Paper, 150 x 150 cm
Advancing together (Kismet), Detail, 2019, Inkjet Print on Fine Art Photo Paper, 150 x 150 cm
Advancing together (the discrepancy between reality and fiction made them laugh out loud, a joke they would frequently tell each other but could hardly share with anyone anymore), 2019, Inkjet Print on Japanese Binding Paper, Styrofoam, Crayon, 21 x 28 cm
Advancing together, 2020, Bruch und Dallas, Cologne, Installation view
Advancing together (Snakes And Ladders), 2019, Inkjet Print on Japanese Binding Paper, Styrofoam, Aquarell Paint, 170 x 100 cm
Advancing together (Yoko x Nora | Bridal Edition), 2020, Silk, Metal, PVC, 110 x 130 cm
Advancing together, 2020, Silk, Metal, Perspex, Silk Thread, 30 x 45 cm, 35 x 15 cm
Advancing together, 2020, Bruch und Dallas, Cologne, Installation view
Advancing together, 2020, Inkjet Print on Japanese Binding Paper, 21 x 28 cm
Photo: Martin Plüddemann