Searching for Stipa: revealing plant biographies across habitats

In this cross-disciplinary project the artists Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir and Mark Wilson, have worked for over three years with Dawn Sanders and Eva Nyberg at Gothenburg University, and Bente Eriksen Lööf at Lund University on the project ‘Beyond Plant Blindness’ (BPB). The resulting site-specific art installations, exhibited in three different locations in Botaniska, the Botanical Garden in Gothenburg Sweden are the outcome of Snæbjörnsdóttir/Wilson’s research (2017). This paper will discuss the art works involved. It will explore through images and texts the stories behind selected individual seeds and plants as they appear in the work, their journey and how these came to be in their current location. Ideas and responses relating to the artworks and their exhibition within the context of the Garden will also be discussed. A particular focus is the remarkable south-European steppe grass (Stipa pennata) which has inexplicably grown in isolation for over 3000 years on a diminutive scrap of land in Sweden. It is now endangered here and amongst other things, the artwork highlights contrasting approaches to its conservation. The exhibition in the Botanical Garden is part of the ongoing research project (BPB), at the University of Gothenburg, led by associate Professor Dawn Sanders at the Department of Pedagogical, Curricular and Professional Studies