Plants, even those who adorn the pages of children’s herbaria or some living rooms of the Global North, are neither neutral nor passive ornaments. Be they observed, (re)-named and classified as botanical objects, extracted and transformed as pharmakon in healing practices, sown and grown as agricultural products, or weaponized as instruments to erase story or to separate lands, plants have always been entangled in (human) politics, especially in relation to the management and treatment of bodies and territories.

In the framework of colonial capitalism, plants have played a crucial role in the dispossession of land and in the extraction of knowledge. They still play a great role in the control of food and the creation of economic dependencies. At the same time, plants provide an habitat for multiple species and people, they have offered shelter for maroons and still do for resistance fighters. They are at the heart of environmental activists’ and indigenous’ struggles as their devastation represents a major issue for the future of so many, and of the planet.

But first and foremost, plants are living, sentient and intelligent beings. They are the only beings able to biosynthesize organic matter using light energy, water and carbon dioxide. Over millions of years, plants have created an atmosphere conducive to the development of other forms of life. They have their own agency, which the (Western) dualist philosophy has been unable to see and understand, putting them at an ontological distance from the humans and deeming them as mere resources. Moreover, the deep entanglement and the co-dependencies between humans and more-than-humans make them indispensable for our survival and that of many species.

In the course, we will investigate the political life of plants and the politics of plants, through the work and research undertook by artists on various relationships woven between humans and plants, across different times, different geographies, different philosophies and under different mechanisms of power.

The course Insularities, Immunities Communities is complementary to the course Strategies of Public Intervention. Please register for both. 

The first meeting on March 3rd is mandatory. 

During the course, we will do an exhibition visit, an excursion and we will invite artists to do lectures /workshops with the students. Details to be confirmed.