WHY LISTEN TO PLANTS?
A plant knows and makes worlds. It communicates.
When we regard a plant, we usually only see what’s above the surface: stems, trunks, branches, leaves, buds and flowers. But there’s so much more below ground – intricate nets of roots, radicles and fungal bodies through which water, nutrients, knowledge and community flows. Plants are always connected, always talking and listening to each other, even in the most constructed of landscapes. A plant knows and makes worlds; it is always in communication with others. Through root-listening, through practices of sharing words, time — and seeds — can we cultivate a vegetable-based consciousness?
FEATURING
Conversations with Aboriginal Elders about reflection on place and plants in Mt Coot-tha.
LIBBY HARWARD, who is a Ngugi woman from the Quandamooka, will share findings, analysis and thoughts from her research residency at the Botanical Gardens site. Libby will lead an artist walk to visit her installed works throughout the Gardens. Through her practice of Gangga (a Yugambeh/Bundjalung word that best translates as “to call out and to hear simultaneously”), and Ganggalanji which extends this action to thinking, she will reflect on the colonial practices of planting for a controlled aesthetic, and how it interacts with the inter-relationship of the flora and fauna that occupy country. It is Libby’s intention to utilise sound and language to understand some things about the interactions and what they might be communicating in an as-yet unheard sovereign dialogue about colonisation, display, danger, and resistance.
The world’s leading plant bioacoustic scientist, MONICA GAGLIANO (Perth) will give a reading and thoughts from her latest book, the phyto-biography Thus Spoke the Plant (North Atlantic Books; released November 13, 2018).
LEAH BARCLAY’s response to Monica’s book is a virtual reality installation using traducers playing through the body to transport the listener deep into the ground following the roots of a plant in search of water.
MICHELLE XEN with SHANE RUDKEN’s meditation on plant-being stems from investigating amplified root systems and native insect sounds, without any scientific basis. Her sensuous sonic camouflage will sympathetically sound eco-sexual plant systems via submersion in subterranean subterfuge.
RENATA BUZIAK’s phyto-graphic abstractions will offer alchemical readings making the sign language of plants legible to human perception.
Throughout the day, MUTUAL MAKING (CAITLIN FRANZMANN and DHANA MERRITT) will generate a space for conversation and the creation and sharing of plant wisdom and experiences, including tea drinking, divination readings and talking.
PRIMITIVE MOTION (LEIGHTON CRAIG AND SANDRA SELIG) will invite audiences into their sun-drenched secret garden of sound.
For more information please visit the – Website
A Plant is a Community is a collaboration between Liquid Architecture and people + artist + place (Jenna Green and Marisa Georgiou) and forms part of Liquid Architecture’s major investigation, Why Listen to Plants.
This project has been supported by Brisbane City Council’s Creative Sparks program and delivered as part of Co-MMotion: Brisbane City Council’s Temporary Art Program 2018.
Image: Renata Buziak