The first celery experiment was subtle, almost invisible. It disappeared quietly, without leaving a trace, except for the one it left in my thoughts. So I started wondering: What if I made it less subtle? What if I made it scream and shout? My idea: use acrylic paint to cover the celery in white. Not to disguise it, but to emphasize it. To make it feel intentional. A deliberate object. Not something you’d accidentally drop but something you’d place with a purpose. If the raw celery was too “real” to be noticed as art, maybe painting it would help it cross that threshold.
The Second Intervention
A few days after the first experiment, I returned to the Hornig Gelände. This time, I placed a celery stalk painted entirely in white on the same platform. It stood out a bit more. Not dramatically, but enough to catch the eye if you were even half paying attention. It looked altered. Like it had been part of something. A prop, maybe? An object waiting for a role? And then I waited again. This time, the celery stayed in place longer (nearly two hours) before disappearing. But unlike the first time, I couldn’t find it in any nearby trash bin. I looked. I checked multiple locations. It wasn’t there.
Art, Theft, or Cleaning Duty?
Where did it go? Was it thrown away again, but elsewhere? Did someone find it interesting and take it home? Was it considered more valuable now that it was visibly “modified”? Or had it become just another strange object that didn’t belong? Guess I’ll never know. There’s something symbolic about painting an object white. It cleans it, purifies it, turns it into a blank canvas. The celery wasn’t edible anymore. It wasn’t just organic waste. It had been separated from its origin. It had become something else even if no one knew what that something was. In a way, painting it felt like a quiet attempt to legitimize it. A way of saying: “This is not trash. This is something.”
But who was I trying to convince?
Does Intention Matter If No One Knows?
That’s the question that kept returning. If no one knows the backstory, if no one sees the act of transformation, can intention still carry weight? Maybe the white paint worked. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe someone admired it. Maybe someone laughed. Or maybe, again, someone just wanted to clean the space and threw it out without a second thought. Either way, I had changed something. Not the world but the celery.
