Horticultural Appropriation

Working title taken from Horticultural Appropriation 2021 by Claire Ratinon & Sam Ayre.

Ongoing research into Horticultural Appropriation. Documenting the development over the past two years (2022 onwards). The project provokes questions of the histories that have been erased, ignored and remain untold of what is left behind when these things are extracted from their native lands, ecosystems. Origins of plants is never questioned in a way to illuminate how it was taken and what that symbolizes. The violence of Horti-pillage and theft in how plants got from one part of the world to another.

Catalogues containing examples of plant specimens, cuttings, and seeds many that originated from other parts of the World, brought together through British Empire requisitions. Many of which are present in our society today but the question of how they got here is often forgotten as restitution of ancestral and sacred objects often at the forefront of demands. The project provides mapping, uncovering of histories, placing stakes where we consider homeland, ancestral home, and current domicile.

Journeys and actions connected, part of a system of imperialism and exploitation, extracting from, altering decimating colonized landscapes, ecosystems and the people who live within them. Seeds deployed as weapons of imperialism, implementing preservation and conservation without investigation keeps histories fossilized. Historical accuracy is needed so missed histories can be retold and reperformed to unembed belief that there is nothing to reconsider.