Artemisia vulgaris, ‘synphytonism’ , and plant-human history exhibitions

What curatorial gesture would make it possible to give rise to a temporary museum in situ where anthropogenic inscriptions could be presented by the living exhibits themselves? In this article the past of the Anthropocene is defined as a time of intensified activity of Homo sapiens in the early Holocene, before our impact on the hydrosphere, geosphere and atmosphere became irreversible. The author ponders whether the current definition of a natural history museum can incorporate a project of a living, embodied, post-anthropocentric and post-institutional museum. She suggests plants as essential partners in the human becoming across the biosphere. Chlorophyll organisms initiated the Great Oxidation Event, or Oxygen Catastrophe, which led not only to the extinction of anaerobic organisms but also to the proliferation of oxygen-dependent life, including humans. The human-plant co-existence is studied through the consequences of the ‘desire for sunlight’ of the former and the ‘desire for mobility’ of the latter. Synanthropic plants, which thrive growing next to people, emerge as the protagonists of this story, with the shared interspecies history and anthropogenic mutations inscribed in their bodies. This is a story of the human–plant co-evolution where contemporary, ‘spontaneous’ synanthropic plants are depicted as agents. In this context the author describes the artistic practices of Andrea Haenggi, analysing them as curatorial gestures for an interspecies dialogue within the framework of a ‘museum setting’