PHYTOPIA

It began as a response to lockdown. It became a new model for digital engagement.

With everyone at home, PHYTOPIA helped people reconnect with plant life. Fourteen interdisciplinary exhibits, ten talks and events, two films and five workshops explored how plants animate our lives.

Plants, centre stage

Plants are often treated as backdrop. PHYTOPIA put them centre stage: as sensors, as archives, as economies and as companions. Works ranged from Jane Tingley's sensor-driven Foresta Inclusive and Yoko Shimizu's Photosynthegraph to Rohini Devasher's Arboreal, which reveals patterns of self-organisation in nature.

Archival exhibits told the stories of scientists like Janaki Ammal and Pandurang Khankhoje, while A Tale of Indigo and Operasi Cassava tied plants to histories of empire, labour and food. Who Feeds Bengaluru?, made with the Edible Issues team, helped citizens map the food systems that sustain them.

The Activity Handbook

Our bilingual, open-access Activity Handbook was meant as a simple guide to experiments. It became a widely used resource, from home-schooling to formal classrooms. Activities inspired by works like Alberto Baraya's Herbarium of Artificial Plants got learners doing plant science with their hands.

CREDITS & SUPPORT

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