🌹 We are honoured to introduce the 77th participant of The Symbiocene Forest, Roots 2025: Lenny Waasdorp with the intimate and poetic project My Grandma is a Rose 🕊️🌱
Lenny’s grandmother, Helena Maria Waasdorp-Kienjet, passed away on September 4, 2002, at the age of 88. For two decades, a rosebush stood rooted at her grave, drawing nourishment from the soil and, with it, the organic essence of a life once lived. When the grave was cleared in 2024, Lenny carefully transplanted the rose into her own garden.
In collaboration with microscopist Rob van Es, Lenny created microscope slides of the rose’s vein, root, flower and stem. These were then photographed, revealing the intricate cell structures of a plant that had become more than just flora — a living archive of memory, biology, and love.
🧬 “When I see the cell structures of the rose, I’m looking at my grandmother’s DNA.”
Through this deeply personal work, Lenny blurs the boundaries between human and plant, ancestry and growth, mourning and transformation.
More about the artist:
🌐 lennywaasdorp.nl
📸 @lalenny_
Roots 2025 can be visited at BioArt Laboratories as part of the Dutch Design Week from October 18-26.