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Somewhere along the way, we have lost touch with what it means to be with plants. In a desperate attempt to safeguard what remains of the more-than-human ecologies that enable life on Earth, humans of late capitalism place their faith in solutions that promise progress while leaving the underlying systems of extraction intact. Yet across many cultures and ways of knowing, co-existence has never been forgotten: plants are ancestors, teachers, collaborators, cosmological actors, and political agents. Plants are—and always have been—kin.

Free Radicals: Attuning to Plants in Creative Practices turns its attention to arts, design, and culture to navigate this friction. A collectively assembled toolkit—part manifesto, part gathering space—this book is for everyone who seeks to engage more deeply with plants in their practice. It brings together the work of 70 artists, designers, researchers, curators, scientists, local knowledge holders, gardeners, and educators who cultivate slow, messy, and reciprocal modes of collaboration between people and plants.

Through essays, interviews, poetry, reflections, and recipes, the publication traverses material cultures, sound ecologies, visual arts, embodied knowledge, design-led methodologies, and grassroots campaigns—gathering and transmitting stories and encounters that reveal the inextricable role of plants in shaping our societies.

With vegetal companions as our guides, the book proposes tools, approaches, and relational infrastructures for thinking-with plants in knowledge production across art and ecology. It’s a Trojan horse exit strategy. It’s a rehearsal for better futures. Because to discuss human kinship with plants is to find common ground with one another, too.

With contributions by Meryem Aakairi, Blanca Allegue, Bálint Antal, Julien Antih, Gabriela Aquije Zegarra, Delphine Arbelet-Bonnin, Kalpana Arias, Kač Bártková, Kenza Benabderrazik, Aly Beveridge, Denise Bianco, Morgane Billuart, Jan Boelen, Sirasar Boonma, CARUMA, Gabriela Carvalho, Aishwarya Chaure, Emiel De Meyer, Gabriella Demczuk, Alejandra Díaz-Guerra Acedo, Eleonora Edreva, Elena Falomo, Noemi Ferreira, Hanna Grześkiewicz, Marina Guzzo, Heim+Viladrich, Andrea Hubert, Maria Ilieva, Juliette Ciano Le Dimna, Yasemin Keskintepe, Klaas Kuitenbrouwer, Adam Kvaček, Brandon LaBelle, tara lasrado, Mai Ling, Mae-ling Lokko, Vivian Lomele, Nick Luscombe, Beatriz Manteigas, Jamie McGhee, Gaja Mežnarić Osole, Eugenia Morpurgo, Natasha Myers, Gaja Pegan Nahtigal, Branca Novoneyra, Uxío Novoneyra Rei, Ricardo Nugra Madero, Uriel Orlow, Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez, Ivana Papić, Béatrice Pépin, Barna Petrányi, Lucia Pietroiusti, David Přílučík, Inês Quente, Emilie Rážová, Linsey Rendell, Gabriel Smales, Lilit Stepanyan, Sasha Střelcová, Lucia Sylvain-Bonfanti, Miguel Tavares, Irene Teixidor-Toneu, Daria Titova, António Trindade, Yuri Tuma, Yanna Varbanova, András Vigvári, and LinYee Yuan.