628 Years of Potatoes
Usucapião, or 628 Years of Potatoes
Agricultural intervention, Berlin, 2023
Awarded the Mart Stam Preis 2024
Over 6 months in 2023, I grew potatoes on a vacant lot across from my atelier on the outer edge of gentrification in Wedding. The lot remained undeveloped and unsold at a speculative price. As the financial value rose, the social value of the land sunk. Based on the principle of usucaption, by which landless farmers in Brazil earn ownership of idle land by planting on it, the intervention occupied the space between the real value of the soil and the constructed value of the right to property and the market price. All plant species and many animal species living on the lot were identified and a selection was displayed on engraved boards on the construction fence. I became part of the community as children joined around the plot of potatoes. The intervention culminated in the collective harvest, followed by preparing the potatoes and giving away the chips on a newly built Pommes stand.
628 Years of Potatoes
Single channel film, 39 minutes, 2024
Directed by Marina Resende and Vincent Jondeau. Sound design by Daniel Koller. Music by Jamire Williams (c) International Anthem.
Awarded the first prize in the category "Environment and Health" at ImagéSanté Film Festival (Liège, 2025).
In 628 Years of Potatoes (40', 2024), an urban wasteland in a poor Berlin district becomes the site of a young woman's unconventional quest. Neglected for years due to the exorbitant price demanded by its owner, the land transforms when the woman plants potatoes. As she connects with the land, she embarks on a poetic investigation of its value.
The film documents the last weeks of the potato field on Papierstraße, leading up to the harvest and an improvised fries stand on the street. The continuous narrative unravels an investigation of its financial, ecological, and social existence. Meanwhile, the camera accesses the life of feral landscapes in the city and the potential for social life offered by undeveloped urban spaces, with an uncanny prescience of this lot's imminent disappearance.
Watch the film trailer here.
Exhibitions:
"Zeitabdrücke", group exhibition, Galerie Pankow (Berlin, June 2025)
"After the concrete", group exhibition, Raum für Kunst und Ökologie/ Asphaltsprenger Festival (Hamburg, May 2025)
"628 Years of Potatoes," solo exhibition, Make-up (Berlin, February 2024)
Screenings and festivals:
"When The Landscape Ends" film festival, with the rubbles of old palaces (Berlin, May 2025)
ImagéSanté Film Festival 2025, category Soulever les montaignes (Liège, March 2025)