Join The Plant Contingent — Ana Fernandez Miranda Texidor PhD, Maria Patricia Tinajero, PhD, Kate Farrington PhD and 2024 IDSVA and doctoral candidate Samantha Jones — as they engage you in new ways of being with plants beyond purely functional or aesthetic approaches.

The Plant Contingent explores alternative and emergent methods that combine creative and artistic research guided by other realms of knowledge-cultivation, such as plant ontology. The dispersed geographies of the Contingent members across the United States and Ecuador become virtual sites for collectively developing works of art, proposals, and texts that thrive on collaborations and in association with plants, soil, bees, and mycelium as grounds for thinking-being.

Based on the concept of corazonar, or heartening, the Plant Contingent sprouts radical entanglements. Participants are invited to engage with the tangible and intangible world of plant-being through the communal and interpretive act of Plant Card readings, while drinking herbal teas and fragrant infusions of plants in an inviting and supportive atmosphere. The cards draw new significance as we share wisdom and exchange insights to unfold these ‘untold-unheard’ stories. Plants nourish and guide, transcending time and culture. In this space, under the gentle sway of plant-infused libations, we tap into our connections with the cards and the natural world, weaving new narratives for a more resilient future.