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Workshops
A series of workshops related to each other has been developed to inspire further research practice.
These workshops attempt to encourage participants to re-see and re-bound with plants and re-imagine human-plants relationships.
workshop 001 - A moment with plants
workshop 002 - Drawing with me
workshop 003 - Writing about me
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001
A moment with plants
This workshop is the first approach to engage the public to be with plants. I have posted an open call on social media to use the term '#BEING WITH PLANTS' to encourage people to have a five-minute communication with accessible plants nearby and then share their experience through video, audio,text, etc. This online workshop was meat to function as a trigger point for the participants to gain embodied kinship experiences.
Most of the outcome materials were photos of flowers and fruits, and others were focusing on vivid color or difference between long time scale. I start to question whether plants were generally considered nonthreatening, silent, and static. Thereupon human brain only picked profitable scenarios like bloom and fruit as visual memory.
If this is a encounter to plant blindness?
002
Drawing with me
The photo materials collected from the first workshop shows that the participants' observation dwelled on a surface level and captured moments that seemed equipped with high instrumental value for human.
Investigating nature's inherent value and egoistic value is a continuing concern within the research of expansive relations between all life forms.[1] This workshop's main idea is to enlight the intrinsic value of plants.
Re-see the familiar everyday plants by revealing the plant's hidden story via drawing and group discussion.
[1] Robert N. Rapoport, ‘Environmental Values and the Search for a Global Ethic’, Journal of Environmental Psychology 13, no. 2 (1 June 1993): 173–82, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0272-4944(05)80149-5.
003
Writing about me
This is a shared virtual space that provides writing instructions to encourage imagination for fictional human-plant stories.
The virtual space could be used for writing workshop instructions or a self-inspiration toolset. Before the writer enters the writing process, there is an introduction to the post-anthropocentric concept. The framework includes three sets of words that provide time, place, and character. The writer could select from the list or add new words to the collection. The plant imaginary space also provides extra phrases for inspiration. After the presented process, the writer should be equipped with an interest foundation for their short fictional story. I have invited some participants from the previous being with plants 001 and 002 workshops to construct their stories.
