Uriel Orlow (born 1973 in Zurich/Switzerland) lives and works in London and Lisbon. His practice is based on research and focuses on a multidisciplinary process including film, photography, drawing and sound. He is known for his video works, lecture performances and modular multimedia installations that focus on specific locations and micro-stories where different image regimes and narrative styles are being mixed. In his works, Uriel Orlow deals with the remnants and aftermaths of colonialism, the spatial manifestations of memory, the blind spots of representation and plants as political actors.

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The bright red geraniums hanging from the balconies of the Swiss chalets and climbing the palm trees in California, are botanically no geraniums either Swiss or Californian, but pelargoniums. They were first brought to Europe after 1672 – and misidentified – when the VOC (Dutch East India Company) established a permanent settlement and a company garden on the Cape and began to explore the surrounding areas to bring new botanical treasures, which, besides pelargonium, included protea, erica and many other mainstays of European gardens. By the time the confusion between the two species was cleared, the ‘African geraniums’ had already existed for 150 years, and British commercial breeders and gardeners were reluctant to give up the familiar name.