How to speak to plants and how they speak to us….

"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 capable of biosynthesising organic matter using light energy, water and carbon dioxide. Over millions of years, they 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.

So we would like to ask, together with artists and theorists: how can human speak to plants, and how do plants speak to humans? – and what does that even mean, ecologically, aesthetically, and politically?

We will think, speak, work about, with and through plants. To do so, we will visit different places and work through various formats. We will visit artists' studios. We will visit exhibitions from the Klima Biennale Wien, and have a two-day workshop with the artist Uriel Orlow. This workshop will be the culmination of the semester, and we will work towards it by developing a series of personal projects.

Participation in discussions, attendance, collaboration & fulfilment, including the realisation of personal projects over the semester. The first meeting and final workshop are mandatory.

Please note that this course consists of two parts. Anne Faucheret delivers the theoretical part, and the practical part forms the rest of the course. Please register for both.

A detailed curriculum and exact plan of the semester will be presented in the first session.