Kiang Malingue is pleased to present Beech, Pine, Fern, Acacia, Zheng Bo’s solo exhibition at the gallery’s Tin Wan space. For the first time, Zheng Bo groups together four “biophilia films” in one space — Pteridophilia (2016-), The Political Life of Plants (2020-), Le Sacre du printemps (2021-), and Samur (2023) — tracing the myriad trajectories through which their artistic practice has evolved in the last decade.

Zheng Bo’s four film projects have been unfolding in four distinct ecological situations: Pteridophilia in a subtropical forest with lush ferns outside Taipei; The Political Life of Plants in an old-growth beech forest near Berlin; Le Sacre du printemps in a primeval pine forest in Dalarna, Sweden; Samur in the Arabian desert with a single umbrella thorn acacia tree.

Zheng Bo began the Pteridophilia series in 2016. As the first project in the ambitious “biophilia films” framework, Pteridophiliaconnects queer people and queer plants by imagining close contacts between humans and ferns. The participants cultivate deep emotional and physical relations with the plants: making love to them, trying out BDSM acts, and bonding with fiddleheads and spores. The stunningly sensual Pteridophilia series provided the foundation upon which later “biophilia films” have expanded.

Gallery address: 13/F, Blue Box Factory Building, 25 Hing Wo Street, Aberdeen