Rachael Thorleifson
Cosmos
Don’t Spread Ashes on Private Property
Moth As Guide
“Thank God I met you here”
See Bird Fly
Glass Factory
Plaza Plays Place

CV
Contact

Cosmos: The Flower and The Universe Itself

2025

Installation with two-channel video (video 1: public gardens with amplified audio; video 2: diagram with narration on headphones, 6:50), A4 handout on orange paper and acrylic holder, seedlings and grow lamp, dead cosmos plants, spray bottle, cup with dried flower petals and seeds.


Through a two-channel video and installation, Cosmos: The Flower and The Universe Itself explores collecting seeds in public gardens, focusing specifically on the cosmos flower. Cosmos, part of the sunflower family, are commonly planted in public gardens for their beauty and their resilient nature – growing quickly in a wide range of conditions. 

Video 1 combines clandestine footage collected in Prague throughout the summer of 2024. 

Video 2 examines the practice of collecting seeds. Using a diagram and narrating voiceover, defines seed collection in metaphysical terms: life and death, public and private, place and memory. 

The installation includes Cosmos plants at various stages; seedlings, originally planted in the studio with seeds collected from the same public gardens featured in the video.

Mystery Below Your Feet

2023
Engraved plastic sign. 

Text borrowed from public signage posted at the Narcisse Snake Dens; a wildlife management area located in the Rural Municipality of Armstrong in Manitoba, Canada where every spring tens of thousands of red-sided garter snakes gather to mate, emerging after their winter hibernation underground in limestone caves.