Plants_Intelligence. Learning Like a Plant

With its Parliament of Plants exhibition in 2020–21, Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein spotlighted a set of momentous issues facing current society. Parliament of Plants II continues this discussion.
The exhibition Parliament of Plants II gives a voice to plants. It testifies to a new view of these beings, which are inextricably linked with our own survival. Over the past decades, a paradigm shift has been taking place in the sciences regarding our perception of plants, one that is also reflected in the exhibition's artworks. Following on from Parliament of Plants (2020–21), the show develops a network of cooperations in a range of different disciplines, with guest contributions in the form of 'inserts'.

Parliament of Plants II demonstrates the principle of symbiosis as a societal counter-image to the parasitic handling of nature. New insights regarding the world of plants feature alongside the knowledge of Indigenous cultures, questions pertaining to colonial and contemporary history, the handling of resources or our perception of time. The crucial question is: how can we achieve a symbiotic coexistence in which human and non-human beings can learn from each other?

The exhibition included two inserts, the project Plants_Intelligence. Learning like a Plant was one of them. We presented a work-in-progress state of our ongoing project through different media, like video, drawing, photography, and text.

Insert II: Plants_Intelligence. Learning like a Plant

The research project on show here, Plants_Intelligence. Learning like a Plant, sets out to widen the debate about plant knowledge and to harness it to social, ecological and ethical behaviour by collaborating closely with representatives from a variety of fields of knowledge. Research team: Yvonne Volkart (head), Felipe Castelblanco, Julia Mensch, Rasa Smite. Participating artists: Felipe Castelblanco, Julia Mensch, Rasa Smite, Raitis Smits.

5.5. – 22.10.2023
Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein

₁_{Photography: Stefan Altenburger, Zürich}
₂_{Photography: Stefan Altenburger, Zürich}
₃_{Rasa Smite, Team Plants_Intelligence}
₄_{Rasa Smite, Team Plants_Intelligence}
₅_{Rasa Smite, Team Plants_Intelligence}
₆_{Photography: Stefan Altenburger, Zürich}

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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