Plants_Intelligence. Learning Like a Plant

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Compendium of a Resilient Behavior

Julia Mensch
Video Essay, 9’15’’, 2025
Single-channer video, HD / 2K

Amaranth is a plant native to the Americas. Its seeds were preserved by indigenous peoples despite Spanish colonizers’ prohibition, and today it is the most widespread glyphosate-resistant weed. It covers over 25 million hectares of GM crop fields and is resilient to most agrochemicals used in transgenic agriculture. Its resilience stems from its genetic variability, which allows it not only to adapt to external conditions but also to shape the environment. The video essay narrates the intelligence and political agency of Amaranth, based on fieldwork and close observation of its vegetal rebellious behavior.

Credits:
Script by Julia Mensch
Camera by Juan Renau & Julia Mensch
Montaje & VFX by Jimena Oddi
Sound Design by Andrés Perugini
English Subtitles by Tamara Stuby

References:
. Renata Kietz, Compendio del Amaranto, ILDIS, 1992
. Michael Marder & Yvonne Volkart, “Thinking Without the Head,” Unter Pflanzen, Museum Sinclair-Haus, 2025
. Ignacio Dellaferrera & Ana Schneider, interviews with the author, Universidad Nacional del Litoral, 2024–2025
. Guillermo Folguera, interview with the author, Universidad de Buenos Aires, 2023

Acknowledgements:
Javier Rodríguez (Cooperativa Cauqueva), Ricardo Calizaya, Bruno Cari, Pablo Gerbi, Celeste Golsberg & Gabriela Faggie (IPAF – Instituto de Investigación y Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Agricultura Familiar, Región NOA), Yvonne Volkart, Rasa Smite & Felipe Castelblanco (Plants_Intelligence Team), Christiane Duwe, Marcos Filardi (Museo del Hambre), Naomi Hennig, Aurelio Kopainig, Lina Mensch, Claire Pentecost, Laura Santos, Alexandra Toland.

This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Glossary

Borrachero Andaki

From the Solanaceae family, the Borrachero Adaki (or Culebra) is a variety of the Brugmansia plant form the high Andes and humid rainforest of Colombia, thought to be a cultigen because its presence is most often related to human settlements where the plant has been cultivated. In 1942, Richard Evan Schultes encountered this rare variety of the Burgmansia plant. Its leaves narrower, resembling a knife and “the corolla almost divided into separate petals united only towards their bases.”

He named this variety Methysticodendron Amesianum [the Mutant Sleep Tree], or also known as Borrachero Culebra.

Richard Evans Schultes, “A NEW NARCOTIC GENUS FROM THE AMAZON SLOPE OF THE COLOMBIAN ANDES.” Botanical Museum Leaflets, Harvard University 17, no. 1 (1955): 1–11. See term

Buen vivir

Good Living is an old-new paradigm based on the indigenous concept of Sumac Kawsay. It is a concept in collective construction in Latin America that seeks alternatives to the Western idea of development, linking indigenous traditions and worldviews with critical ideas within Western modernity. Buen vivir proposes to abandon the idea of development as unlimited economic growth and to substitute it for a supportive and sustainable economy, displacing the centrality of humans, recognizing the centrality and value of nonhumans, and the rights of Nature.

Mónica Chuji, Grimaldo Rengifo, and Eduardo Gudynas, “Buen Vivir,” in “Pluriverse. A Post-Development Dictionary”, eds. A. Kothari, A. Salleh, A. Escobar, F. Demaria & A. Acosta, (Tulika & Authors Upfront, New Delhi, 2019), 112. See term

Plasticity

Plasticity is an individual plant response to the environmental change as it is called in ecology and evolution studies. According to the view of natural scientists (such as Trewavas), the “intelligent behavior” by plants shows rather during their individual life time scale, and that this process is not an evolution. See term

Resistant weeds

Term given by industrial agriculture to spontaneous vegetation resistant to agrochemicals used in transgenic monocultures. See term

Senti-pensar

Eduardo Galeano once said that our society often separates our soul from the body and mind from heart. To avoid this, Galeano proposed the concept of "senti-pensando" which means feeling-thinking. He learned this wisdom from Colombian fishermen who created the word "sentipensante" to describe language that speaks the truth.

Eduardo Galeano, "The book of embraces,” Trans. Cedric Belfrage, ed. W.W. Norton, (New York, 1991), 221. See term

Weeds

Over 50 years ago, biologist Edwin R. Spencer stated that “any plant is a weed if it insists on growing where the farmer wants another plant to grow. It is a plant that is out of place, according to one person's judgment, but according to the good judgment of nature it is perfectly in its place.”

Edwin Rollin Spencer, in “Malezas comestibles del Cono Sur y otras partes del planeta," E. H. Rapaport, A. Marzocca, S. B. Drausal, (Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria, Universidad Nacional del Comahue, Bariloche, 2009), 3. See term

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