Fotografie

30. June 2024 - 22. September 2024

Klaus Pichler: The Petunia Carnage

Opening Sunday, June 30th, 11.30 a.m.

This chance encounter was the beginning of what later be called the ‘petunia crisis,’ leading to the destruction of all orange or salmon-coloured petunias all over the world. 

The project ‘The Petunia Carnage’ by Viennese photographer Klaus Pichler is based on the true story of these orange petunias. It relates the consequences of Teeri’s discovery, when DNA tests revealed that the orange petunias are transgenic, a product of biogenetics. It traces back to the origins of the orange plants, and their mysterious ‘escape from the laboratory.’ It explains why these orange Petunias were classified as ‘illegal,’ after they had been bred and sold without approval for more than 25 years, leading to their global mass-destruction in 2017 – until 2020, 143 variants of orange petunias had been found, all sharing the same gene sequence of the plants from the trial in 1990.

The story of the orange petunias is more than a scientific anecdote – it is a parable of what can happen when scientific interest, commercial marketing logic, public discourse, and unexpected coincidences clash.

‘The Petunia Carnage’ presents the chronology of this case point-blank, using photography, facsimiles, and artefacts, augmenting scientific fact and archival material with fictious elements. Pichler’s photographic tale is based on a collaboration with all relevant protagonists of the case of the orange petunias. They exchanged experiences, provided visual material, and granted access to their laboratories, where they are still allowed to breed orange petunias for research purposes.

As an eye-catcher, a large field of petunias will be installed in the Stadthaus for this exhibition – without genetically modified plants, of course.