ongoing project in development since 2015
‘weeds’, quiet activism, documentation, herbarium
‘teaching the names of plants and ignoring their songs’
Gathering ‘weeds’ from the Forest Garden, documenting their arrival and their tenacity; the ‘(un)planted’.
Utilising the 500 year old practice of the herbarium gathering, pressing, drying and collecting plants between sheets of paper.
Taking inspiration from the words of Robin Wall Kimmerer, acknowledging the self-seeded, avoiding identification in favour of listening to their ‘songs’, in contrast to the approach of western science, which uses the herbarium to systematise the plant world, to name, to classify, to take DNA, as a way of knowing all that needs to be known, ignoring a much broader, deeper understanding of plants as physical elements of the ecosystem.
landscape, rural, environment, marginalisation, plants, ‘weeds’, quiet activism, documenting, sharing, watching, listening, community
© Sophie Standford