“Industry Plant” - Site-specific installation for the Vienna Design Week 2026 (20th Anniversary) - Vienna, Austria, 2026.
“What happens when people move out of a high-rise office building like this year’s Festival Headquarters? When the Vienna Design Week team first entered the former Allianz insurance office, it resembled a ghost town where office plants had been left to wither. Thanks to her experience in corporate interior landscaping, Buenos Aires-born, Berlin-based designer Virginia Jakim recognized the situation immediately: they forgot to fire the plants! Or did they? In Jakim’s speculative installation, the plants simply carry on working. Diligent and not knowing what to do, they copied human behaviour. They assigned themselves titles with human-like job positions. They organized meetings, defined tasks, goals, they created motivational quotes for internal marketing and even adopted corporative jargon. Although some concepts like "sick leave", "growth", "greenhouse effect", and "fired" seem to have a different meaning for them.”
The installation was composed of objects found in this year’s festival location, (abandoned plants, lamps, neckties, office supplies) and several original pieces: a set of 8 fictional internal marketing posters, business cards for each plant, a video, and the “Time to go home” wristwatch-mirror (2025), re-contextualized for this occasion. A final object played a dual role: a letter written to the Vienna Design Week in my name completed the fiction while it worked as exhibition text.
"Earth-cooling", 70x50cm, Blueback poster paper (Photo credit: Amos Tade) "We aim for growth", 70x50cm, Blueback poster paper, (Photo credit: Fahim Mohammed Jaseem) "Let the sunshine in", 70x50cm, Blueback poster paper, (Photo credit: Maciej Karon) "Our job comes naturally", 42,7x60cm, four versions, Blueback poster paper, (Photo credits: Maarten Van Den Heuvel, Yvette, Natalia Trofimova and Bart Zimny) "Need some air?", A4 plotter print in matt paper, acrylic stand - (Photograph: unknown)
“The Air Quality & Foliage Department presents...”, single channel video, 5:46min. “Time to go home”(“Club” series), wristwatch-mirror (2025)