Plant Crimes

Bright-orange petunias? Astonished, biologist Teemu Teeri stood in front of the decorative planter he had spotted at the Helsinki railway station in 2015. He broke off a few stems, and examined them in the lab. The petunias had been enhanced with a maize-plant gene, resulting in its salmon-coloured blooms.

In May 1990, 30,700 genetically modified petunias had been planted in the grounds of the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne. It was the first time that genetically modified plants were allowed to be grown outdoors in Germany. The trial was preceded by extensive parliamentary discussions, complex approval procedures, and fierce protests from environmentalists. After the experiment, all of the plants were destroyed to prevent the spread of the genetically modified plants.

The project The Petunia Carnage by Viennese photographer Klaus Pichler is based on the true story of the orange petunias. It details the consequences of Teemu Teeri’s discovery, and traces the origins of the orange-coloured plants and their mysterious ‘escape from the lab’. The project also recounts why orange petunias were classified as illegal, after being cultivated and sold for over 25 years without authorisation – leading to their targeted worldwide destruction in 2017. By 2020, 143 variants of orange petunias had been identified, all of which carried the same genetic sequence as the plants from the 1990 experiment.

The tale of the orange petunias is more than a scientific anecdote – it is a parable of what can happen when scientific curiosity, commercial marketing agendas, sociopolitical values, public discourse, and unexpected coincidences collide. Curated by Dr. Raimund Kast, the exhibition at the Stadthaus Ulm includes an installation of a large petunia field, serving as an eye-catching centrepiece for visitors – of course, without any variants with genetic modification.