Diana Scherer has exhibited in international solo and group shows, including in Fashioned from Nature, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 2018/19: A Queen Within – Adorned Archetypes, New Orleans Museum of Art, 2018; Earth Matters, Textile Museum Tilburg, Netherlands, 2017; Spectrum Crops, Mediamatic Amsterdam, 2017; Springtide, Photography Museum Rotterdam, Netherlands, 2017. She has published two books at Van Zoetendaal Publishers; Nurture Studies 2012 and Mädchen 2015. Her work is included in the collections of among others: Victoria & Albert Museum London, Design Society Shenzhen, FOAM Amsterdam, Museum Arnhem, Centraal Museum Utrecht, Rabo Art Collection, Art collection of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Netherlands, Bijzondere Collecties Leiden, Normec, NN Collection Netherland, UMC Utrecht and Photography Museum Rotterdam.
The artist's practice takes the subterranean life of plants as its basis. Revealing the agency of root systems, her works navigate their surroundings by responding to gravity, moisture and chemicals. Wanting to make these hidden processes visible, the artist first began to apply the intelligence of plants to her work in 2015. In collaboration with biologists, Scherer developed a technique to direct the growth of plant roots, turning them into an artificial textile. Cultivating them along specially designed moulds, her forms are lattice-like, reminiscent of wool or silk. In the process, her works become inscribed with metaphors and questions around our relations to plant-life.