Dr. NATASHA MYERS on Growing the Planthroposcene /204
Spinning, blurred image of the underside of a bare-branched canopy of deciduous trees by Dr. Natasha Myers.
In this episode of For The Wild, we are offered a palpable reminder that we cannot become accustomed to life in the Anthropocene - to do so is to fall peril to the traps of apocalyptic thinking. Instead, this week’s guest, Dr. Natasha Myers cultivates a body of thought and practice that prioritizes and fosters the intertwined relationship between plants and people, aptly referred to as the Planthroposcene. Natasha leads us to a world where magic happens through our active collaboration with plant kin. Beyond appreciation for plants, Natasha shares the importance of experimenting with the playful work of plant embodiment and seeding “plant-people conspiracies.” How can these connective practices provide diverse ways of knowing through a boundary-breaking experience? How might this embodiment cosmically and intuitively push us towards deeper connection and radical imagination?
“The recognition that plants are breathing us into being, that their exhaling is the possibility of our inhale.”
Photo of Dr. Natasha Myers
Natasha Myers is an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at York University, director of the Plant Studies Collaboratory, convener of the Politics of Evidence Working Group, co-founder of Toronto’s Technoscience Salon, and accomplice to Toronto’s Indigenous Land Stewardship Circle. Her current ethnographic projects speculate on the contours of the Planthroposcene, with investigations spanning the arts and sciences of vegetal sensing and sentience, the politics of gardens, and the enduring colonial violence of restoration ecology. Since 2015 she has been working with dancer and filmmaker Ayelen Liberona on Becoming Sensor, a research creation project to invent protocols for an ungrid-able ecology of the happenings taking shape across ancient and urban lands in Toronto.
In conversation with Natasha, we discuss the necessity of finding non-human guides, the responsibility we have to make room for plants, anthropomorphism, restoration ecology, and reconfiguring our relationship to the future. We invite you to tune into this imaginative and regenerative episode as we give gratitude to our plant kin and the world to come.
♫ Music by Sunshine Shadow and Eliza Edens
References & Recommendations
How to grow liveable worlds: Ten (not-so-easy) steps for life in the Planthroposcene by Natasha Myers
Sensing Botanical Sensoria: A Kriya for Cultivating Your Inner Plant by Natasha Myers
Dr. Timothy K Choy, Associate Professor of Science and Technology Studies
Becoming Sensor in Sentient Worlds
Indigenous Land Stewardship Circle
Land as Pedagogy: Nishnaabeg Intelligence and Rebellious Transformation by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
This Accident of Being Lost by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
Decolonization is Not a Metaphor by Eve Tuck & Wayne Yang
Alterlife and Decolonial Chemical Relations by Michelle Murphy
Ungrid-able Ecologies: Decolonizing the Ecological Sensorium in a 10,000-year-old NaturalCultural Happening by Natasha Myers
Take Action
Support Indigenous stewardship for climate action and harm reduction. See for example http://indigenouslandstewardshipto.wordpress.com
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For The Wild Podcast is an anthology of the Anthropocene; focused on land-based protection, co-liberation and intersectional storytelling rooted in a paradigm shift away from human supremacy, endless growth and consumerism.