Beyond Plant Blindness

The book stems from the pedagogical, art and botanical project of the same name, undertaken between 2015 and 2018 by a core team of researchers – moreartists Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir & Mark Wilson, Dawn Sanders and Eva Nyberg (plant science educators) and Bente Eriksen (botanist). The team set out to urge a philosophical and actionable move beyond the cultural condition of “plant blindness” and so to disrupt what is a traditional and debilitating human view. Despite the challenges, there is a need for humans to engage conceptually and responsibly with non-human organisms, possessing entirely different physiologies and behaviours. In our engagement with such difference, it is vital that we are not diverted into subjecting plants to human registers and ‘terms of resemblance’, (Houle, 2011) but rather to engage with their ‘plantness’ (Darley, 1990), an approach equating to ‘parities in meeting’ (Snæbjörnsdóttir & Wilson 2010).