Synanthropic plants. What Weeds teach us?

About:

The exhibition Synanthropic plants. What Weeds teach us? showcases a series of objects created by individuals studying at the School of Form. Research on synanthropic plants served as a pretext for delving into complex human-non-human relationships and coexistence. Through the exploration of the microcosm of the ruderal kingdom, participants in the project created personas of weeds – imagined biographies based on their characteristic features, needs, dreams, and relationships with the environment. The result of their work includes both small publishing forms and objects designed individually or collectively. The exhibition and its process are the brainchild of three lecturers who joined forces in an interdisciplinary educational program.

Students conducted several weeks of field research on weeds, creating plant personas. They explored the historical and cultural representations of selected synanthropic plants, photographing them in their natural environment, observing their daily lives, and documenting their behavior. What do they like or dislike? What is their biography? What relationships do they enter into in the peculiar microcosm of the ruderal kingdom, often found in semi-wild areas within urban spaces? What traumas, on one hand, and what dreams, on the other, have shaped their character? Inspired by Donna Haraway's tentacular thinking, the students generated speculative knowledge about non-humans, the plant organisms whose existence is often overlooked.

This knowledge and perspective became the starting point for the project. On one hand, students collectively created small publishing forms, such as Zines about plant personas; on the other hand, they individually designed and produced objects inspired by the characteristics, needs, dreams, skills, or visual aesthetics of their plant heroes.