Towards an Ecosophical Art

In this way, ecosophy avoids an exclusively scientific approach by embracing the microscopic and the intangible: it “must not be exclusively concerned with visible relations of force on a grand scale, but will also take into account molecular domains of sensibility, intelligence and desire."Ibid., 28. Ecosophy therefore suggests modes of recomposing human practices in all fields, particularly that of art, by paving the way to new ethical uses. Surprisingly rarely taken up since The Three Ecologies came out in 1989, the concept of ecosophy, as defined by Guattari, proves to be especially pertinent for thinking about the contemporary. How does ecosophy translate to current art practices? Although artists may have rarely referred to the concept per se, do their practices not attest to comparable approaches? “A society’s approach to plants is also a mirror image of itself.”Lois Weinberger, "Lois Weinberger: Green Man", interview by Bergit Arrends and Jessica Ullrich, ANTENNAE: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture, no. 18 (Fall 2011): 39. The words of Lois Weinberger, who was one of the first artists to integrate plants into his work, resonate directly with the concept of ecosophy. Starting in the 1970s, Weinberger focused on promoting the advent of a society that is “ruderal,” an adjective typically used to describe vegetation growing among urban rubble or in cracks. We need to rethink our societies based on our relationship to the plant world: this is the approach initiated by Weinberger, dubbed the “green man,” several decades ago and continued in an increasingly active manner by new generations of artists. Among them are Åsa Sonjasdotter and Zheng Bo, whose work is not limited to an ecological aim or a sustainable form but integrates environmental issues with broader concerns. Through her fifteen-year project Potatoes’ Perspective, Sonjasdotter has been exploring the issues of knowledge and power related to the cultivation of potatoes, focusing particularly on concrete collective initiatives to promote the crop development of varieties that are on the verge of extinction because they do not conform to European Union standards. These projects incorporate and reveal the historical contexts in which they are placed; for instance, in High Diversity (Paris, 2014), Sonjasdotter restores tubers that were developed to combat famine in the 1780s and then grown in symbolic gardens, such as the Tuileries, during the French Revolution. In works that are often multidisciplinary and developed jointly with local communities, Zheng uses wild plants as a symbolic medium of resistance and resilience. Weed Party (Shanghai, Taipei, Turin, 2015–ongoing), Kindred(Shanghai, 2017), and Pteridophilia (2016–ongoing) show, with humility and sensuality, new ways of understanding our environment. For both of these artists, plants become both carriers and symbols of a paradigm shift that combines anti-speciesism, spatial valorization, micropolitics, and institutional critique. As Guattari explains, the ecosophical revolution comes down to an existential tension that “will proceed through the bias of human and even non-human temporalities which will lead to the opening up or, if you prefer, the unfolding, of animal-, vegetable-, Cosmic-, and machinic-becomings."Félix Guattari, The Three Ecologies, 38. This What might we understand by vegetable-becoming? It means not that human beings should imitate plants but that they should reinvent themselves by allowing the characteristics usually associated with vegetal otherness to develop in them at a microscopic level — which requires moving away from an anthropocentric approach in order to postulate equality among species. Such a movement can be found in the works of Sonjasdotter and Zheng, who celebrate plants’ sensitivity, diversity, modes of interaction, adaptability, and even — as more and more botanists strive to show — intelligence. In keeping with Weinberger’s metaphor, these gestures can be seen to reflect a society in transition to pluralism, interdependence, and nonviolence. This vegetable-becoming develops largely through the gaze: as Sonjasdotter explains, “Looking at humans from the perspective of potatoes means seeing them from another angle. Basically, it’s a new way of understanding them."Åsa Sonjasdotter, "Rencontre avec Åsa Sonjasdotter", interview by Agathe Ferin, Association du Bois Dormoy, July 6, 2014, (our translation). By examining the past of these tubers, she uncovers a slice of European history in which plants and humans seem inextricably linked to and interdependent on each other. Inspired by queer ecology, Zheng advocates equality among species and radically deconstructs the borders between them. The idea of vegetable-becoming is fully realized in his video series Pteridophilia (literally “love of ferns”), in which six naked young men have intense sexual encounters with plants in a rainforest in Taiwan. In the shadows of the undergrowth, human skin and vegetal membranes brush against each other, stems and tongues intertwining, in a surprisingly evident ballet. Here, plants are perceived no longer as vegetative beings to be exploited or decoratively used but as beings charged with sensitive and erotic potential that puts them on an equal footing with human beings. Although the issue of consent remains in the blind spot of the filmed exchange, equality enters the bodies more profoundly, sublimating and legitimizing a desire traditionally perceived as deviant. Zheng BoPteridophilia 4, video stills, 2019.Photos : courtesy of the artist Recognition of plants as our peers also develops through their legitimization and inclusion in public space, a reversal that has both symbolic and material value. Rather than creating something new, the works of these artists demonstrate a different intent: make room for that which has been marginalized in the Anthropocene by an exclusively human domination of space. In Zheng’s view, ruderal plants embody this marginality. In Kindred, he reveals the wild plants growing around the Ming Contemporary Art Museum in Shanghai by opening the iron curtains that usually hide them and then transplanting them inside the building. Highlighted by LED grow lights, the plants demand the gaze of the visitor, who is invited to enter into an affective relationship with them by writing them letters. Although this relationship remains provisional and metaphorical, the work offers redress to vegetation that is usually disparaged but is now the centre of attention in a prestigious context where it typically has no place. For Sonjasdotter, the artistic gesture is inseparable from the place in which it is made, since agriculture — and its products — exists only through the land where it is practised. In all her projects, she explores the relationship between the local population and the crops grown, by talking with archaeologists, historians, breeders, farmers, and foresters working in the region in question. For High Diversity, she identifies several places around Paris suitable for growing ancient varieties of potatoes, such as the Bois Dormoy community garden. The reflection involved in choosing these cultivation sites demonstrates the particular attention that she pays to the plant’s history and well-being. At the same time, temporary installations with a more symbolic value, which take the form of simple containers, pots, or bags filled with soil, form precarious yet precious spaces where prohibited plants can at last grow freely, as at the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature and the Institut Suédois in Paris, in 2015. Zheng BoKindred, installation view, Ming Contemporary Art Museum, Shanghai, 2017.Photo : courtesy of the artist Åsa SonjasdotterHigh Diversity, as part of the project Potatoes’ Perspective, details of the installation, Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Paris, 2015.Photos : courtesy of the artist Furthermore, according to Guattari, ecosophy should stem from the collective search for “micropolitics” — microscopic or “molecular” practices that take immediate or daily concerns as their starting point. Without renouncing global social change, both discourse and actions should be free to develop in contained spaces and small communities — the typical dimensions of the works discussed here. For example, when Zheng humorously imagines the Weed Party, a post-human political party with a universal scope, this doesn’t keep him from redefining its every iteration according to the local context (Shanghai in 2015, Taipei and Paris in 2016, and Turin in 2018–19). He works with sociologists, political scientists, and botanists using minor forms: dialogues, letters, walks, or collective drawings and diagrams. The relationship with a small scale allows for more specific, participatory, and inclusive engagement.Sonjasdotter took a similar approach when she organized a market-exhibition of potato varieties with dissident farmers in the region as part of High Diversity. The installation-performance, which took place at Centquatre-Paris in 2014, was put together in collaboration with several urban gardens, each represented by a stand. This format allowed participants to talk about the potato, learn about the history of its commercialization, and distribute endangered varieties. Therefore, what might have appeared to be simply a market (at first glance, there’s nothing more banal, commonplace, and down-to-earth) took on a political dimension and became an act of disobedience and rebellion against the European agri-food system. True, the action was minimal, even derisory, but at the scale of the potato, its impact was crucial. Just as with Weed Party and many comparable initiatives, the action strove toward a broader societal project, whose very condition such initiatives constitute.Finally, in opposition to a fixed and sacred work confined inside a gallery or museum, ecosophical practices — particularly those that involve plants directly — advance a living, contextual, and transdisciplinary art. Rather than being objects, these works are more similar to the actions and research associated with living beings experimenting with new ways of living together. As living spaces, environments of interspecies experimentation, and microscopic and collective initiatives, they avoid commercialization and museumization; their value is not material, and yet their positive impact is very tangible. Unable to exist and survive without our care, they embody a general metaphor for the world around us and indicate, beyond the artistic sphere, the urgency of an ecosophical turn. By developing new ways of creating, exhibiting work, and soliciting the participation of local stakeholders — from professionals to the general public — ecosophical art opens new avenues to cultural places that could become privileged spaces of ecological contact and engagement and be at the forefront of a social, subjective, and environmental revolution. Translated from the French by Oana Avasilichioaei Åsa SonjasdotterHigh Diversity, as part of the projet Potatoes’ Perspective, installation view, Centquatre-Paris, 2014.Photos : courtesy of the artist Asa Sonjasdotter, Cléo Verstrepen, Zheng Bo

Towards an Ecosophical Art

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