Closeup view of the plants and escalator
A close up of leaves on a tree
A man in a suit walking down the hall way
A hallway with three plants in silver pots.
A plant in a metal container on the ground.
A plant with pink flowers and green leaves.
A close up of the flowers on a plant
A building with two elevators and one has flowers on it.
A plant in a metal pot on the floor next to a tree.
A close up of some plants in the foreground
A close up of some green leaves on a tree
A plant in a white pot on the floor
A plant in a white pot next to a wall.

Happy Faux Flora, 2002

Artificial trees and plants, planters.

In 2002 the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the World Financial Center Arts and Events commissioned nine artists to create site-specific works for the World Financial Center, in celebration of it’s reopening after 9/11.

Happy Faux Flora involved the casual introduction of modified artificial trees and plants into the lobby World Financial Center. The store bought artificial trees were altered to look artificial, each leaf cut into an unnatural shape (triangles and rectangles etc.) to create unabashedly fake trees and a fantasy of future genetic mutations. Twice removed from their original context the plants were literally reinvented.

Read essay New Views- World Financial Center by Nuit Banai

Read essay Even The Plants Are Angry, by Sara Reisman for the catalogue accompanying Underbush, 2007 at the Helen Pitt Gallery, Vancouver.

Essay by Nuit Banai