Plant Fever

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 AU Collaboration  Conferences Plant Fever Program

Program

Day 1, December 1st

14.45-16.15

Guided tour of the Palm House (pre-registration required)

  • Venue: The Palm House, Botanical Gardens, Gothersgade 128, 1123 Copenhagen K

Day 2, December 2nd

08.30

Registration desk opens 

  • Venue: Natural History Museum Denmark, The Auditorium. Øster Voldgade 5, 1350 Copenhagen K

09.00-09.45

Opening panel with representatives from the collaborating partners

  • Anette Vandsø, Conference organizer, Research Project on Hidden Plant Stories, Aarhus University
  • Nick Shepherd, Conference organizer, Research Project on Hidden Plant Stories, Aarhus University
  • Martha Ann Fleming, Conference organizer, Center for Practice Based Art Studies, University of Copenhagen
  • Anne Katrine Gjerløff, Head of Interpretation and Public Programming, Natural History Museum Denmark
  • Rikke Zinck Jensen, Curator, Ordrupgaard
  • Rasmus Kjærboe, Curator, The Hirschsprung Collection

09.45-11.05

Session 1

  • Anne Sophie Overkamp, Plant as Cultivators: The Use of Plants in Educational and Social Reform Projects in Germany, 1890-1910.
  • Elin Bergman, Presenting plants, educating the masses: Horticultural
  • exhibitions in Europe and Sweden during the nineteenth century
  • Beate Weyland and Simona Galateo, Domestic Ecologies of Learning:  Houseplants as Agents of Pedagogical and Spatial Transformation

11.05-11.20

Break with coffee, tea, cake and fruit in the Per Kirkeby rotunda

11.20-12.40

Session 2

  • Franziska Bergmann, Exoticized Plants and Greenhouses in 19th-Century German Literature
  • Thomas Storey, Becoming Houseplant: More-than-human Transformation in Han Kang’s ‘The Fruit of My Woman’
  • Pernille Leth-Espensen, The Gendered Politics of Women and Plants

12.40-13.10

Lunch in the Per Kirkeby rotunda

13.10-14.10

Keynote 1

  • Anette Vandsø, Plant Fever of ‘Indoor Nature’: Opening the Archives of 19th Century Danish Art

14.10-14.25

Break with coffee, tea, cake and fruits in the Per Kirkeby rotunda

14.25-16.10

Session 3

  • Vibe Nielsen, Palms and Prestige: Reproducing the Tropics in the Glasshouses of Copenhagen
  • Francesca Murray, ‘Offspring of Naturalized Aliens’ The orchid collections of the Rothschilds 1850-1940 - a head gardener’s perspective from root to flower
  • Jeanette Ehlers, Rootwork: a site-specific installation for The Hirschsprung Collection addressing the history and agency of the tobacco plant 
  • Lene Floris, Cactus-fever in Danish cultural and colonial history

16.30

The conference bus leaves for Odrupgaard

17.15-21:00

Reception at Ordrupgaard with dinner, and tour of the exhibition Plant Fever: The World on the Windowsill (pre-registration required)

  • Venue: Ordrupgaard, Vilvordevej 110, 2920 Charlottenlund

21.00-21.30

Return to Copenhagen. The conference bus will stop at the Natural History Museum               

Day 3, December 3rd  

09:00 (Masterclass students+ teachers)

09:45 (Conference participants) -10.45

Guided tour of the exhibition Plant Fever: The World on the Windowsill at The Hirschsprung Collection (pre-registration required). 

  • Venue: The Hirschsprung Collection, Stockholmsgade 20, 2100 KøbenhavnØ

10.00

Registration desk opens with coffee, tea, cake and fruit in the Per Kirkeby rotunda.

  • Venue: Natural History Museum Denmark, The Auditorium. Øster Voldgade 5,

11.10-12.10

Keynote 2

  • Giovanni Aloi, Green Intimacies: What the Houseplant Reveals about Modern Life

12.10-12.40

Lunch in the Per Kirkeby rotunda

12.40-14.25

Session 4

  • Diego Molina, Parasites of Desire. On how ornamental plants have used us to travel and take root around the world
  • Astrid Møller-Olsen, Literary Plant Lovers: Houseplant Partners in Human Romances
  • Gunhild Ravn Borggren, ‘To become like a piece of nature’: Unity of plants and Japanese objects in Nordic paintings
  • Louise Isager Ahl, Tracing Aloe vera: Medicine, Medieval Manuscripts, and a life in cultivation
  • 14.25-14.40: Break with coffee, tea, cake and fruits in the Per Kirkeby rotunda

14.40-15.40

Keynote 3

  • Martha Ann Fleming, Illustrating Economic Botany in Colonial Denmark: Tranquebar and St Thomas in the Archives of the Natural History Museum Denmark

15.40-15.55

Break with coffee, tea and fruits in the Per Kirkeby rotunda 

15.55-17.40

Session 5

  • Jeppe Priess Gersbøll, The gardens of Danish artists over time           
  • Anna Svensson, Hemmet Blommar: Reflections on the role of house plants and cut flowers in author house museums
  • Anders Barfod Sanchez, The role of art in the era of plant blindness
  • Mónica Uribe-Flores, An aesthetic approach to gardens and native plants

17.40-18.00

Concluding remarks

Plant Fever: The World on the Windowsill

The conference is organized in conjunction with the exhibition Plant Fever: The World on the Windowsill at The Hirschsprung Collection and Ordrupgaard. Hosted by the research project Hidden Plant Stories (Aarhus University, Ordrupgaard and The Hirschsprung Collection) supported by the Velux Foundation. Collaborating partners: Natural History Museum Denmark, Center for Practice-based Art Studies (University of Copenhagen), the research programme Environmental Media and Aesthetics (Aarhus University).
Organizing team: Anette Vandsø, Nick Shepherd, Martha Fleming, conference secretary Martin Bjerg Dahl and conference assistant Mathias Bækhøj Karlberg.

Revised 09.03.2026
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Knud Holt Nielsen