TEENAGE RIOT DATURA KIDS
First edition of a publication compiling texts and documents following Antoine Renard’s research on psychotropic plants and cognitive representation. Rooted in a sustained interest in narcotics and altered states of consciousness, the project began in the summer of 2010, when the artist encountered a naturally growing specimen of Datura stramonium in front of his studio in Berlin-Neukölln—a plant that, through millennia of coexistence with human activity, has acquired a significant cult status within psychonaut subcultures.
After harvesting the plant’s seeds, he cultivated numerous specimens in his studio and garden using hypertonic methods, while gathering accounts of datura-induced trances from teenagers across the globe. The process generated both a crop of organic plant entities and a constellation of meta-narratives, conceived as an experiment in self-taught rites of adulthood.
Interwoven with Merel Cladder’s writings and commentaries throughout the book, the project moves across contemporary art, biotechnology, shamanism, consumer culture, and the global circulation of anecdotal experiences found on the internet.
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