VASTER THAN EMPIRES BUT MORE SLOW
A gathering on encounters with plants
7 May 2020

 

Concept and facilitation: Aleksandra Jach, Aneta Rostkowska
Place: Zoom
Date: Thursday, 7.05.2020, 6-8pm (CET)
Language: English
Limited number of participants. In order to register for the meeting and receive the text, please send an email until 6.05 to info@temporarygallery.org. On the day before the meeting, you will receive a link and instructions on how to attend.

We are happy to invite you to take a part in a collaborative writing and reading session devoted to plants and their relations with humans! We will discuss literary texts, share our emotions towards domestic plants and try to find a new and common language to describe these complexities.

There are two assignments to complete before the session, both of them will help us to warm up in thinking about plant based imaginaries:

- writing a short half-page piece about the relation that you have with a particular plant (this task is inspired by the website Herbaria 3.0) and

- reading a science fiction short story “Vaster than Empires and More Slow” by Ursula K. Le Guin which gave the title to the meeting. The story follows an exploratory ship sent to investigate a newly discovered planet, where the entire vegetation is part of a singular consciousness.

During the session everyone will have an opportunity to share their story and (if possible) show us the plants at their homes. After the break, we would make a collective attempt at analysing all gathered material through such notions as politics, the commons, reproduction, dying, collaboration, domination etc.

Aleksandra Jach is a curator, educator and art historian. For many years she has worked in Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź. Currently Aleksandra collaborates with Biennale Warszawa on the programme devoted to the climate crisis. Her recent projects include: Carolina Caycedo & Zofia Rydet. Care Report, Congress of Empathy at Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź (2019) or How to talk with birds, trees, fish, shells, snakes, lions and bulls? at Staatliche Museen in Berlin (2018).

Images
Ines Doujak: Exu, 2017