Transformative Botanical Representations

Work from summer 2023’s LARC 582L/DES 450L: Transformative Botanical Representations, led by Divine Ndemeye and supported by TA Meredith Wilson, has been shared in a new publication.

The course was guided by a main area of inquiry: How can we relate to and document plants in ways that acknowledge their sacredness and agency and lead us to better relations? Students were challenged to engage in discourses and practices to disrupt the Eurocentric visual narratives in botany and planting design. The resulting projects employ a multitude of representational methods and ways of working, informed by critical discussions of positionality, ancestry, culture, and intersectionality.

Acknowledging that we work and learn on the unceded, unsurrendered, and ancestral homelands of the Hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ and Sḵwxw̱ú7mesh Sníchim speaking peoples of the xwməθkwəyə̓m (Musqueam), Sḵwxw̱ú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples, the course aimed to center a respect-based design lens of MST and Indigenous sovereignty, and Afrofuturism.

Read here