On a burning planet, foraging and maintaining relationships of reciprocity with neighbours, friends, flora, fungi, and bacteria may be our only way through. Nurturing kinship with “invasive” plants growing in degraded lands, vacant lots and unexpected alleyways offers important lessons toward integrating the natural world in “unnatural” settings.
As part of Ishtar’s Network of Feral Gardens this year, SAVAC commissioned Meech Boakye and Christina Kingsbury’s “Transplant Field Guide”. This text provides insight on a number of species deemed “invasive” across Turtle Island, and provides alternative modes of knowing, understanding, and being in relation to them. Guided by Boakye and Kingsbury’s Field Guide, we will consider what forms of life exist in spaces which we otherwise view as barren, form relationships with them, learn from them, and reciprocate with gratitude and curiosity.
TPFF thanks the South Asian Visual Arts Centre (SAVAC) for their colloberation and sharing their exhibition with TPFF audiences.