FUTURE PLAN(T)S — Art Meets Science

introduction by Jill Scoot on the thematic public exhibition at SAE Greenhouse ETHZ

The future of our plants is one of humanity’s biggest challenges. What reflections do 18 artists have about this current discourse and the future of plants? How do we preserve and communicate their biodiversity, what is the role of wild plants, how can agroecology work to sustain cultivated plants? How can the soil be revitalized? What public discussions can we have about these relationships between nutrition, food, and social issues? In this exhibition 18 well-known artists reflect on these questions in the Greenhouse of the Sustainable Agroecosystem Group at the ETHZ. These artworks, films and installations, attempt to raise awareness about the fu- ture of plants, soil, nutrition, food, and water, and they reflect contact with the research group in the field of sustainable agrosystems.

FUTURE PLAN(T)S will be accompanied by two public LASERZURICH panels, featuring talks and discussion with artists and scientists. These discourses will be held with artists and scientists on «The Future of Soil - Plant inter- actions» and «Resilience, Nutrition, Food Systems». 

LASER I + II   ... www.laserzurich.com   

curator's essay by Jill Scott, Dorothea Rust, Ursula Palla, Sandro Steudler and Barbara Bietenholz

COMMON LIFE
A plant has a common life, it has its origin, substance, and place inside the living strands of a relationship that is in constant conversation with its sur- roundings. FUTURE PLAN(T)S is based on the voices of artists, who value plant's form of communication with each other and with us. In FUTURE PLAN(T)S, 18 artists show a variety of complex works, about the issues surrounding wild plants, cultivated plants, soil culture, food, nutrition and carbon as well as the effects of climate change. For many years, art that rela- tes the future of our society and agriculture, soil, politics and the nutritional health of food is seen as performative and artistic research (1). Here, art has its own voice to present associative ideas for the public to reflect and pon- der on their concerns about the future of plants in a unique way. We argue that longer term collaborations between artists and scientists can create new engagements and knowledge through artistic-poetic, even speculative narratives based on and inspired by scientific facts. As this is only a starting point, FUTURE PLAN(T)S is an exhibition that focuses on a particular space; the Greenhouse – as a place of experimentation and research. Here plants for experimentation and food production for a growing population currently take place. However, the greenhouse can also be seen as a metaphor for the human impact on greenhouse gases, the ones responsible for global war- ming and the inclusion of gas emissions from mass produced agricultural production. The artists pose urgent questions about the preservation of our existing flora and fauna, and how wild plant growth might be seen as ‚le tré- sor du monde‘ at the centre of our way of looking at issues like biodiversity.

REWILDING WILD PLANTS
In relation to biodiversity, the artists are interested to re-think our relation- ship between the resilience of wild tree plants and us (Rust) or they are fascinated to document the evidence of the survival and rewilding of na- ture in urban environments (Vonplon) or observing how life sprouts out in the most inhospitable places (Steudler). They are also drawing analogies between the biological materials like kombucha and our skin by looking at the relationship between decomposition and the natural microbes of decay (Minder). Artists are interested in how wild plants, forests and the roles of trees can become relatives in our local environments and often find their own new ways to reproduce and spread, into our urban environment (Steudler) or how indigenous wild plants are now being turned into pro- ducts for cultivation, medicine, and biodiversity (Scott). For scientists who focus on similar research in agroforestry, there is also a need to integrate forests into the fields and work locally with polycultures to secure the bio- diversity of their food production.

CULTIVATED PLANTS
For many years wild plants, like deep rooted wild sweet grasses and their cultivated cousins or rice or wheat, have been cultivated by us and artists are facinated to portray these original plants ability to adapt to an increasing- ly warmer atmosphere (Palla). Indeed, the next generation of consumers might be interested in the beneficial production of earth grasses as their herbal gardens of the future (Radelfinger). Meanwhile, future relationships between greenhouses, field trials, scientific researchers and farmers have become interesting comunities to explore. Can this relationship overcome the challenges of disease, plant yields, biodiversity and adaptation (Scott/Hahne)? The scientists from the SAE group, Department of Environmental Systems Science in ETHZ, tell us, that the future of agriculture will be based on changing the use of our land, intercropping and mitigation technologies that can help communities capture carbon and move away from our current reliance on monoculture to maintain our agrobiodiversity. This may require participatory plant breeding - with farmers rather than technologies impo- sed by biotech companies to help overcome food security issues and poor soil quality.

SOIL CULTURE BIODIVERSITY
Of major interest for the artists is to find ways to revitalize our relationship to the soil and its microorganisms, such as bacteria, viruses and fungi. We need new creative interactive experiences that help us to understand the networks of fungi and roots (Schläpfer-Miller) and how underground root systems form an intricate web of exchange of nutrients between vegetation and mycelium (Orlow). Part of this understanding is to work with the public on soil cultivation and its decomposition (Kumar) and to think more deeply about soil, its carbon cycles and its ability to sequester carbon right under our feet, in fact under our streets (Germann/Lorenzi). These issues high- light the fact that a great deal of the biodiversity on earth is microbial, like bacteria and archaea found in our top-soils. Also, pollution – whether che- mical, radiation or waste is concentrated in soils and then spread into fresh and salt waters and air. For artists, metaphors about the relations between plants and soil explore the fact that humans aren’t just single individuals walking the planet: we are also walking ecosystems made of microorga- nisms. Microbes as bacteria, fungi, and viruses are even part of our skin and digestive microflora, covering both the inside and the outer surface of the
body and they have symbiotic relationship with the interface between our body and the environment (Hahne/Scott and Minder).
Art can serve as a catalyst to connect to the soil through physical contact as well as learn about the nutrition microbes and molecules and our senses of taste and smell (Scott). For agroecologists, soil management is about ferti- lity and the impacts of climate change and climate change adaptation, the health of soils microorganisms, erosion, cycle management and nutrition. Here the artists role is to awaken people to safeguard this precious resource and its biodiversity above and below ground. Soil is a social, political, and international debate. This debate covers issues such as food quality and supply, breeding methods, environmental impact, breeding practices, re- search, capitalization, value creation and enactment of laws. Artists tend to approach this debate and its social aspects from a more speculative angle.

NUTRITION, FOOD AND SOCIAL ASPECTS
Artists are interested to communicate many ideas, like the big relationship between the migration of plants and the migration and colonial activities of people (Spieser), or the need for a circular economy: a win-win situation (Bie- tenholz) for the soil (4) and the economy as expressed by a number of young economists (5). In our urban environments we already live in chambers whe- re the life cycles of nature could be used as a metaphor for better communal living, health, and improved cultural exchange (Jungo/Bosshard). We can learn more about the nutritional benefits of eating roots for their anti-inflam- matory, probiotic and flavoring qualities (Hahne). Perhaps we can work in our own neighborhoods to explore the social relationships between plants, humans, and food (Good). These interests are part of a global interest to work together on the problems of adaptation, nitrogen and carbon cycles in the atmosphere. Currently, there are many examples of artists across the world who are calling for mitigation, an active, collective engagement with the planet, and they want to illuminate some of the structures that threaten humanity‘s survival (2). What guides the artists gathered here is an ardent concern for the living, breathing subject of the Earth and all fellow terres- trials caught up in this fast-moving climate drama. Furthermore, they see public reflection as a big part of mitigation. Currently, one of the tragedies in social science is called «the tragedy of the commons”: a situation in a sha- red-resource system where individual users act independently according to their own self-interest and behave contrary to the common good of all users by depleting or spoiling that resource through their collective action (6)

CONCLUSION
So in this Art meets Science Commons, FUTURE PLAN(T)S, the interesting questions are: how can we work together in the future on a type of transdi- sciplinary incubators where our combined themes of creative, critical and lateral ideas about the future of plants are explored? How can we create an incubators for art and science and public cultural communities, ones with their own logic for the common good of plants in the future? The exhibition also offers two public LASERZURICH events as attempts for such creative incubators where experts meet to talk with non-experts from science and art to share ideas about novel narratives that based on environmental wel- fare (see LASERZURICH). These incubators value «tacit” knowledge from the arts and agriculture as well as «implicit knowledge” from scientific research. This is a combined knowledge that requires extensive personal and physical contact, regular interaction and trust that relies on inclusion, skills, ideas, and experiences (6). We see this exhibition as the beginning of a new community incubator. As curators, the idea was to share different viewpoints on sustainability in relation to agroecology and plant produc- tion as well as start to learn from scientific research. We chose a democratic process; one in which we could participate as artists, but also choose two other artists to present their work inside this SAE Greenhouse. FUTURE PLAN(T)S may also travel to other greenhouses in universities who are in- terested to collaborate with artists. We hope you, dear visitors, enjoy the variety of approaches and poetic responses to this important subject: the sustainable future of our plants and our planet.

references:
1. Example: Bristol Centre for Contemporay Art. Soil Culture Residencies. Bristol Centre for Contemporary Art and the Natural World (CCANW) 2015 : https://ccanw.org.uk/soil-cult...
2. Fowkes, M. and R., Art and Climate Change Thames & Hudson. 2022.
3. Hardin, G., «Tragedy of the Commons» in The Commons, Diner‘s dilem- ma, Enlightened Self-Interest, Population Control, Inverse Commons, Common Heritage of Mankind. Eds: Surone, LM ,Timpledon M.T, Marseken, S. 1968
4. Nutrient recovery from waste streams, viewed 07.Dezember .2022, http://.runres.ethz.ch
5. Potter, C. Welcome to the Circular Economy. The next step in Sustaina- ble Living. Google Books 2021. 6. Polanyi, M. 1966. The Tacit Dimension. University of Chicago Press

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