Herbarium of absent plants — Artistic intervention by Gabriela Piwar in the CSW Bookstore

What does the absence of a plant mean in a place created for the purpose of collecting it? Botanical garden collections never include the entire plant world. Their boundaries are determined by the conditions of cultivation, the possibilities of obtaining selected species or the decisions of the curators of the collections who create them. Behind every absence there is a different story.

Gabriela Piwar's project grows out of an interest in these stories and an attempt to imagine an encounter with six plants that cannot be seen in the Botanical Garden of the University of Warsaw. The artist creates their images from photographic fragments of other plants and elements of the garden environment, arranging them in mosaic herbarium cards. They are accompanied by a field diary in which absent species become hiking companions.

The catalog cabinet from the herbarium of the Botanical Garden of the University of Warsaw transferred to the Bookstore of the Center for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle becomes a temporary storage place for these stories and images. It is a collection built around what is missing and attempts to imagine what remains beyond its limits.

The work was created as part of the Plant Talks 2026 Artistic Residence organized by the UW Botanical Garden in cooperation with the Ujazdowski Castle Center for Contemporary Art. The project is co-financed by the City of Warsaw.