Follow the Plants Book Launch

Come raise a glass with us in an evening of readings and reflections to celebrate the launch of our newly published book Follow the Plants.
About this Event

Attentive to plants as agents, interlocutors and companions in world making, the book explores how following plants can reorient aesthetic, political and epistemic questions, cultivating new ways of attending to collectivity, interdependence and plant–human relations in artistic research.

During the event, editors Madeleine Collie and Yvonne Billimore will introduce the book and expand on how contributors approach following plants across time and terrain. Contributor Matti Aikio joins to read sections from his text “Reindeer Follow Plants, Mushrooms and Lichen (and We Follow Reindeer)” reflecting the fragile inter-dependencies of plant, animal and human life in Sámpi under threat an era of rapid climate change. Invited as a correspondent, Julia Kemppinen who studies tundra plants and microclimates in Sámpi in her role as assistant professor in biodiversity change, University of Helsinki, speaks to how scientific methods of following plants might benefit from being in dialogue with artistic methods and indigenous ways of knowing.

Kyriaki Goni also thinks with plants and erasure in her text “Intertwined Silphium Dreams: Bodies and Territories as Contested Sites of Extraction” entangling storytelling, speculation, scientific data and traditional knowledges. Her performative reading conjures a doula’s dream following syphilium across millennia as it is pushed to the edge of extinction from overharvesting. She weaves this with the process of pregnancy, becoming a mother and thinking with the body while writing about this plant. 

Foraged and fermented drinks will be served by curator Katie Lenanton as part of her project Bar Tender, a mobile pop-up art bar, and a long-term relational artistic and curatorial project, drawing parallels between the labour and social dynamics of a curator and a bartender.

This event is a collaboration between Bioart Society, Food Art Research Network and HAM - Helsinki Art Museum. Foraged and fermented drinks will be served by curator Katie Lenanton as part of her project Bar Tender, a mobile pop-up art bar, and a long-term relational artistic and curatorial project, drawing parallels between the labour and social dynamics of a curator and a bartender.

This event is a collaboration between , and .

The Follow The Plants book is published by and , and funded by Creative Australia, Saastamoinen Foundation, Frame Contemporary Art Finland, Stanley Picker Gallery at Kingston University and the University of East London Sustainability Research Institute. Follow the Plants is supported through a Food Art Research Network and Bioart Society collaboration.

Follow the Plants is edited by Madeleine Collie and Yvonne Billimore with contributions from AK Wane, Åsa Sonjasdotter, Alana Hunt, Annalee Davis, Banu Subramaniam, Beatriz Paz Jiménez, Christian Thompson, Clare Qualmann, Diana Vieira, Elia Nurvista, Franswa Tibere, Gargi Bhattacharyya, Grace Gloria Denis, Joana Quiroga, Johanes Jamil, Jorge Menna Barreto, Joshua Gebert, Joss Allen, Keg de Souza, Kristina Jones, Kyriaki Goni, Leone Contini, Lucy Davis, Madeleine Collie, Marta Fernández Calvo, Margherita Pevere, Matti Aikio, Mariana Martínez Balvanera, Nathalie Muchamad, Nida Sinnokrot (Sakiya), Nick Anderson, Rain Wu, Rubiane Maia, Shalini Krishan, Sirkku Rosi, Yvonne Billimore, Zayaan Khan and Zheng Bo. Designed by Zenobia Ahmed.

Access: The venue HAM - Helsinki Art Museum at the Tennis Palace is located in the Helsinki city centre right next to Kamppi Shopping Centre. The Book launch will happen in the seminar room, which is located on the second floor of Tennis Palace right next to the museum's ticket counter. Tennis Palace is fully accessible.

Image: Book design by Zenobia Ahmed. Cover Image: The Resilient scars map, realised by the citizens of Santa Comba Dão, part of the project Lament by Margherita Pevere. Slide design by Maríana Martínez Balvanera.