The Traveling Plant Garden

The Veridical Travel Around The World of A True Imaginary Plant 

The Traveling Plant project will trace the voyage of a plant – real, artificial or fictive – around the world, as she tells her story and the stories of other plants and creatures (human and non-humans) she encounters. It is the umbrella title for a series of artworks and events held around the world at different places and times, under the direction of local participating organizations and international curators.

The travel is structured around a common basis and rules with common outputs, though each participating organization is free to interpret the project, choose the artist(s) and the format of the event(s) it sees fit. As such, it is open to all kinds of aesthetics and artistic mediums.

The Traveling Plant project aims to avoid anthropomorphism and anthropocentrism to present the plant’s perspective about herself and her surroundings. It will unfold, slowly, over two years, in line with the plant’s rhythms. The project’s format will encompass and span the entire continuum of online events and physical spaces, with every possible in-between, hybrid proposition.

During Ars Electronica Festival 2020, The Traveling Plant will be preparing its journey by compiling a collective Preparatory Log Book. In a hosting spirit, people will be invited to tell the plant what she may expect to discover and experience in her voyage, and what and whom she may encounter.