With her site-specific installation, Virginia Jakim creates a tongue-in-cheek narrative in which plants take over the work at the Festival Headquarters. 

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 the 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 mimic human behavior.