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Micro-Landscapes of the Anthropocene

Plant Blindness, Insect Blindness?

Allen says of Plant Blindness: 'the problem is, if most people don't pay attention to plants and the fundamental role they play in maintaining life, society isn't likely to agree that plant conservation is among humanity's most crucial issues'. Could the same be said for human perception of insects?

We remain ignorant to the idea that the single ant meandering past is is participatory in its own colony and by virtue the ecosystem at large; The species Formica yessensis has colony sizes of up to 306 million workers. It is staunchly anthropocentric to perceive the individual ant as somehow not important to a greater cause, or as not having importance in the natural world (a parallel can be drawn to Australia's response to it contribution on climate change i.e "we don't produce comparable emissions comparative to larger nations, therefore out contribution is negligible.")

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Critical reflection: Plant world project. (Hiba Alhamidawi and Isabella M-White ) Hiba Alhamidawi and Isabella M-White
Critical reflection: Plant world project.

Plants,
noun,
one word,
6 letters.
According to the Oxford dictionary, they are defined as "livings organisms of the kind exemplified by trees, shrubs, herbs, grasses, ferns, and mosses, typically growing in a permanent site, absorbing water and inorganic substances through its roots, and synthesizing nutrients in its leaves by photosynthesis using the green pigment chlorophyll."
However, this definition isn't sufficient, scientifically it is, but personally it no longer is. The conducted theoretical research on plants, the literary analysis of a poem, the photo essay, and the film, are all tasks that have entirely transformed our perception of the plant world. Taking previous scientific and narrow understanding of plants being oxygen producing green machines simply reduced to an aesthetic background and challenging it to something far broader and far more complex. The theoretical articles, Alice in the land of plants: Biology of Plants and Their Importance for Planet Earth, by Yiannis Manetas and 'Should Plants have Rights?' by Michael Marder, have both strongly informed our understanding and approach to the project. Both articles discussed the importance of plants on earth and their significance simply because of their existence amongst us. This theoretical approach to the plant world introduced us to the concept of plant blindness which in effect challenged previous anthropocentric views and influenced our outlook to plants in everyday life. Once we learnt about the concept of plant blindness and posed the question to ourselves 'do plants have rights?', we found ourselves viewing the greenery around us with a new-found hyper-awareness. This hyperawareness of how prevalent plants are in the everyday, the mundane, and not just the sublime, was reinforced through the analytical close reading of "The heart of the Tree" by Henry Cuyler Bunner. As the image that Bunner paints in the mind of the reader when describing all the ways in which trees are significant to the extent of creating a nation, has the effect of being imprinted within the audience's consciousness. Meaning that whenever the reader looks to the world they can't help but project this renewed understanding of trees and plants onto what they see. The expression once you see it, you cannot un-see it has never proven more accurate in the case of this project. This new-found hyper-awareness of plants and trees in the everyday was the fundamental theme of the photo essay and the short film, as both tasks utilize the visual mode or presentation to transform the audience's visual perception of plants and trees by confronting them to notice the greenery in their line of sight. Both tasks also confront the audience to abandon pre-conceived notions of the distinctions between the world of nature, man, and manmade. The immaterial, material, the living, and non-living, are all integrated and co-existent, plants, building, and human are all captured in one shot, demonstrating the interconnection through the abandonment of boundaries.

Thus, the overall aim of the project was to channel this renewed understanding of plants onto the creative tasks in order to also challenge the audiences’ plant blindness, anthropocentric views of plants, and to encourage ecological thinking. The creative and theoretical journey through this project has also encouraged the reconceptualizing of plants, through the new concept of plant cognizance, which is a counter-response to the concept of plant blindness. The term cognizance refers to having knowledge or awareness and it is originated from the Latin term cognoscere ‘get to know’. Thus, plant cognizance as counter-response to plant blindness refers the process of becoming aware of plants, getting to know them, and understand their significance and role in our everyday life. This concept also illustrates our own process from having plant blindness to having plant cognizance.
Furthermore,
Plants,
noun,
one word,
6 letters.
Yet so much more.