Büropflanze ─ Saskia Groneberg
A photobook exploring office plants as signs of disorder, dependency and life within standardised working environments.
Büropflanze (office plant / 2012) is a photobook by German photographer Saskia Groneberg, based on her research into plants found in offices across Germany. At once a reflection on the workspace and a deeper inquiry into the forms and values of labour, the book looks at how fragments of nature introduced into standardised, functional office environments quietly expose fundamental human desires and contradictions.
Groneberg visited offices throughout Germany and photographed office plants as living beings inhabiting a kind of “natural habitat.” Even when provided merely as decoration, these plants become small forms of disorder within rigid systems, ambiguous presences within geometric spaces, and sparks of life inserted into structures of management and control.
Unlike holiday postcards or family photographs, which personalise impersonal office architecture through static signs of identity, plants change and grow. They stretch toward the ceiling, cover radiators and creep into the gaps of blinds—sometimes unnoticed, sometimes carefully tended with affection. Only partly controllable and deeply dependent on care, they survive in dry artificial surroundings through water and maintenance. From mailrooms to executive offices, hardy subtropical species coexist, adapting to room temperature, dry spells and, at times, excessive watering. The close relationship between humans and plants can sometimes last as long as a person’s entire career.
Groneberg also collected leaves to create a herbarium of office plants, archived them using a scanner, and later cultivated them as cuttings. Accompanied by texts written by office workers, the book offers glimpses into the psychological relationships between plants and their caretakers.
Limited edition of 500 copies.
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Title: Büropflanze (office plant / 2012)
Artist: Saskia Groneberg
Text: Thomas Seelig
Publisher: Edition Taube, 2017
Format: Hardcover, thread-stitched, Offset Duplex UV Print
Size: 210 × 290 mm
Pages: 76
Language: German / English
Edition: First edition of 500 copies
ISBN: 9783945900086