Performance Lisa Biedlingmaier
Date: Sunday, 21 June 2026 / 17:00–17:30
Language: English
Old Botanical Garden, Pelikanstrasse 40, 8001 Zurich

In Mystical Geometries, Lisa Biedlingmaier shifts the focus away from individual active substances toward the complex pharmacological networks of plant-based preparations. Rather than treating medicinal plants as isolated substances, as science often does, she is interested in the relational processes through which effects emerge in the interplay that is greater than the sum of its parts. In her textile installation, she translates the holistic understanding of traditional medicine into a visual and haptic web of knots, connections, and supports. The act of knotting thus becomes a metaphor for the subtle mixtures that work on a (not merely) cellular level.

The textile installation spans above the Gessner Herb Garden, which serves as a foundational grid with its geometric layout. Since the earliest prehistory, humans have used geometry as a principle of order, as a medium for interpreting the world, and as an interface between human structure and cosmic measure. Geometrically arranged gardens make harmony, meaning, and transcendence spatially perceptible, while the plants connect the above with the below and point to humanity’s entanglement with the cosmic cycles of this planet.

What happens in a place where time and cycles, life and death, encounter and ritual flow together? Through a performative exploration, the garden itself, its geometry and its sensory qualities, is made experiential. By making these multilayered connections visible and tangible, Biedlingmaier turns the garden into a living diagram in which pharmacology, biology, and cultural meaning interpenetrate one another. The frame is provided by a sound performance built on phase shifts, in which identical rhythmic structures are minimally offset against each other and gradually unfold into ever-new sonic constellations. Through these gradual shifts, overlapping patterns and perceptual effects emerge that resonate with the multilayered dynamics of the hidden orders of mystical geometries.

Credit: Courtesy of the artist