Plant Blindness and Repair

Abstract

This paper investigates how arts and narrative can repair the ecological and cultural damage caused by plant blindness. ‘Plant blindness’ is the human inability to identify and appreciate vegetal life in the immediate environment (Wandersee and Schussler 2001). Plant blindness results in reduced restoration and care of plant species and ecologies (Allen 2003, Balding 2016). As a concept that has certain negative associations around abled/disabled language, plant blindness is also a symptom of solastalgia. Facing off this visibility problem is the concept of robotany. Robotany refers to art and design objects that engineer plant elements within design technology. This paper interrogates how robotany hybrids of plants and technology can raise awareness for the sophisticated capabilities of plants and can repair human/plant relationships and how sustainable and conscious cultural praxes can imagine stronger human-plant futures. By analysing the work of artist Olga Kisseleva’s EDEN, and designer Gionata Gatto’s Geomerce, this paper sits within the discipline of environmental aesthetics by connecting with eco-criticism (Bird Rose, Marder, Plumwood) and phytography (Vieira). Repairing the damage caused by plant blindness may affect our plant futures, via art and design robotany mediations.