摘要：Artists and scholars alike are turning to plants as key allies in our attempts togo beyond colonial modes of engaging with the environment throughextraction, control, categorization and the human-centric discourse ofAnthropocene thinking. This paper will adopt the methods of “critical plantthinking” and “multispecies ethnography” to investigate creative modes oftelling “lively stories” about two particular species of plants made nomadicduring colonial seed scattering – Bitou Bush (Chrysanthemoides monilifera) andAloe (Aloe ferox). Both plants moved through botanical/colonial conquestfrom South Africa to Australia for ornamental reasons, yet have become avilified weed and economically promising respectively. Turning to embodiedand humble practices of composting, foraging, crafting and care, this articlefeels through recent practices of tactical and food based art, combiningtheory with ethnographic narrative that details the making of actual jam withtwo plant protagonists. Developing the concepts of “multispecies jamming”and “DIY violence,” this paper grapples with the presumption thatdifference translates to ontological separation, and ultimately asks for avaluing of plants beyond human use, opening ourselves up to embodied,vulnerable ways of ingesting stories and cross species relationships. How dopractices of grounded care intersect with violence in ways that may developtools and methods to compost the Anthropocene with plants front of mind?How might this help us to unseal ourselves from complexity and separationin times of mass extinction and destruction?
