Follow the Plants is transhistorical, inter and trans local project that situates artistic practices within and among creative lives of plants. Unfurling in different phases and formations Follow the Plants has become a long-term research enquiry for artists in the Food Art Research Network and other invited contributors in collaboration with Bioart Society.
Expanding from an experimental exchange initiated by Madeleine Collie in 2023 and developed in dialogue with Yvonne Billimore the project offers a long term platform for entangled plant research. From 2020 the Food Art Research Network has held a range of gatherings in which plants and their stories are shared and brought together to think through ecological, social, political and metabolic relations.
Follow the Plants exchanges 2023-24
The first phase of Follow the Plants invited eighteen artists across Americas, Australia, Asia, Europe and South Africa to rethink cultural practices through collaborations with plants, as growing, decaying, and metamorphosing beings that shape the places they inhabit. Through the project artists shared their long term durational and complex research practices with another artist; opening up their approaches and ways of thinking, making and learning alongside the movements of plants, people and practices of kinship across territories.
The artists who participated in these exchanges are Alana Hunt, Annalee Davis, Clare Qualmann, Elia Nurvista, Grace Gloria Denis, Joana Quiroga, Jorgge Menna Barreto, Keg De Souza, Kyriaki Goni, Leone Contini, Lucy Davis, Mariana Martínez Balvanera, Marta Fernández Calvo, Nathalie Muchamad, Rain Wu, Rubiane Maia, Shalini Krishan, Zayaan Khan.
In their correspondences with each other and their plants they swapped plant stories, images, research notes and/or conversations. This research has been documented through performance, text, poetry, instructions, artwork, shared recipes which is available in an online archive on Follow the Plants page on Food Art Research Networks website.
Follow the Plants publication 2024-26
From 2024-26 Follow the Plants has continued through the form of an experimental publication, that expands the form of artist correspondence, both with other artists and with plants that are central to their work. Featuring over 40 contributors, the anthology brings together artists, scholars, and collectives who work with plants as collaborators, teachers, and political agents.
Contributors include: AK Wane, Åsa Sonjasdotter, Alana Hunt, Annalee Davis, Banu Subramanium, Beatriz Paz Jiménez, Dr Christian Thompson, Clare Qualmann, Diana Vieira, Elia Nurvista, Franswa Tibere, Gargi Bhattacharyya, Grace Gloria Denis, Joana Quiroga, Johanes Jamil, Jorge Menna Barreto, Joshua Gebert, Joss Allen, Keg de Souza, Kristina Jones, Kyriaki Goni, Leone Contini, Lucy Davis, Madeleine Collie, Marta Fernández Calvo, Margherita Pevere, Matti Aikio, Mariana Martínez Balvanera, Nathalie Muchamad, Nida Sinnokrot, Nick Anderson, Rain Wu, Rubiane Maia, Shalini Krishan, Sirkku Rosi, Yvonne Billimore, Zayaan Khan, Zheng Bo.
Edited by Madeleine Collie and Yvonne Billimore, the Follow The Plants book will be published by Onomatopee and Discipline in August 2026.
Follow the Plants Research Assembly, Helsinki 2026
To celebrate and activate the newly launched publication Bioart Society and Food Art Research Network will be hosting a lively research assembly in Helsinki from the 26-29 August. The assembly establishes correspondences between the publications contributions, and local practitioners, places and publics in Helsinki, inviting further processes of collective research to unfurl beyond the page.
Read more about the research assembly programme here.
Funding and support
Follow The Plants is a Food Art Research Network project, developed in collaboration with Bioart Society, research and development has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body. Support for the research phase was also provided by funding from Bioart Society and Monash University Curatorial Practice.
The publication has been funded by Creative Australia, Saastamoinen Foundation, Frame Contemporary Art Finland and the University of East London Sustainability Research Institute.
The assembly is funded by Saastamoinen Foundation with support from the Finnish Institute in the UK and Ireland. The assembly programme is realised in a city wide partnership with HIAP - Helsinki International Artist Programme, Helsinki Art Museum, Kaisanemi Botanic Garden (outdoor garden), Kenno Filmi and Cinema Orion, and Koekeittiö / Test Kitchen.
