The vegetal curator, plants as agents of decoloniality in curatorial and pedagogical practices

Abstract

The Vegetal Curator looks at plants as agents of decoloniality through curatorial and pedagogical processes. This thesis consists of four chapters that work around the question: How can plants be approached as agents and companions in processes of decoloniality within artistic, curatorial, and pedagogical practices?

My practice as a curator and art educator, and my larger aim to decolonize as a way to promote social and environmental justice, serve as a starting point for this research. With anecdotes on work experiences, I reflect on the possibilities and outcomes of taking vegetal characteristics as methods for teaching and curating. Through historical and theoretical research, I contextualize these ideas further. With the addition of exercises that integrate the addressed methods, I invite the reader to join and practice these vegetal qualities in activities.

The first chapter focuses on the role plants play in coloniality and their possible agency in decolonial processes by looking at colonial systems in the past and present and proposing how the characteristics of plants can support ideas of decolonizing. Sections of experimental writing take the perspective of the nutmeg tree and form an option of the suggested vegetal approach. The second chapter looks at how art functions as a vehicle for decolonial processes while allowing a central role for plants. I analyze six selected case studies and relate each to a method with decolonial potential. Together these methods form a toolbelt of imaginative, relational, and caring modes to practice decoloniality in companionship with plants. With an anecdote from my practice, I reflect on the potential of the method and then share an exercise that the reader is invited to activate. The third and last chapter asks how curatorial practice can take inspiration from plants to support processes of decoloniality. Characteristics of plants serve as a call to formulate points of attention that build and improve curatorial work with vegetal qualities.

Working through the three chapters, The Vegetal Curator moves from speculation to theory, from case study to method and exercise, and from experience to a call. All of these form elements of my hybrid practice, which aims to move away from human exceptionalism and collaborate with plants to develop alternative ways of being in the world.