Bard College Berlin News
Prof. Dr. Agata Lisiak publishes paper "Notes on Plant Companionship” in the Journal of Visual Culture
In the paper, Lisiak proposes to think of Luxemburg’s herbarium as a manifestation of plant companionship, a term she uses to describe the practice of noticing plant life and acknowledging it for what it is, caring for and about it, protecting and defending it, and remaining humbly open to what we do not (yet) know about it. Lisiak’s reflections on Luxemburg’s herbarium serve as a point of departure for a discussion on plant companionship under the conditions of occupation, war, land grabbing, and ecological destruction.
To tease out plant companionship’s politics of affirming life, she turns to contemporary artists who have been engaging with plants in formally inventive and careful ways—Milena Bonilla, Marwa Arsanios, and Jumana Manna—and she brings in John Berger’s writings and drawings to highlight the epistemic and ontological openness that is required of humans in life-affirming engagements with nonhuman species.
Read the full text of Lisiak’s paper here.
Post Date: 01-06-2025