When: Friday, June 21, 2024, 3:00 PM - 7:00 PMWhere: Graduate Centre, Room 601, Mile End Campus
Speaker: Ann Garascia (CSUSB)
For the last event of the Environmental Futures Series, Dr Ann Garascia will share her research on Vegetal Photography. After Ann’s talk, we will move to the terrace on the top floor of the Graduate Centre for a Plant Party to celebrate the end of the programme and announce what’s coming next.
Selfies and Shelfies: a Vegetal History of Photography
The Zoological Society of London’s Pete the fern has a new favourite pastime: taking selfies. With his frothy fronds, who could blame Pete for the self-love? Pete’s photographic pursuits, however, are not exercises in vanity, but rather ones in expansive environmental documentation. In addition to Pete himself, the photos register broader changes in temperature and humidity, which could help scientists in understanding how plants archive climate change. Taken from a vegetal perspective, the selfie transforms from an act of individual commemoration to a mode of environmental data collection. This talk reconstructs a plant-centered history of photography that spans the nineteenth century to Pete’s contemporary moment. I characterise plants as both subjects and photographers. Rather than exercises in anthropocentric control, photography visualizes and promotes connections amongst plants, their greater environments, and the humans who love them. To add our own entries into this vegetal history of photography, we will conclude the Environmental Futures Series with a Plant Party with our very own houseplant photo shoot, drinks and food. Would your plant prefer a selfie? Or perhaps a family photo starring all of you? Or, maybe even a “shelfie,” a group photo of all the plants in attendance? All plant- and camera- types welcome!
Dr Ann Garascia (California State University, San Bernardino) is a researcher, writer, and educator who specializes Victorian literature and culture, archival studies and book history, and ecocriticism. anngarascia.com
The Environmental Futures Programme brings together scholars, artists and community organisers interested in plant life. The programme is curate by Dr Giulia Carabelli and sponsored by the Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences at Queen Mary University.