Weeds in Art: Growing Hope in the Shadow of Power

Caron has developed a worldwide urban macro-herbarium visible in cities such as New York and San Francisco in the United States, Porto Alegre in Brazil, Quito in Ecuador, Vigo in Spain, and Mumbai in India. She sees painting weeds as a form of resistance. Her “phytograffiti,” as she calls them, are accessible landmarks of social and ecological resilience. Eutrochium purpureum is commonly known as Joe-Pye weed; the plant’s name is an homage to the Mohican healer who utilized it in Indigenous phytotherapy. The roots of Caron’s mural titled Shauquethqueat’s Eutrochium (2021) reach deep into the fraught histories of cultural subjugation and forced eradication upon which the foundations of the United States were laid. It proudly stands as a prayer for cultural healing, its bold visibility at once a vivid reminder of the erasure of Indigenous cultures and a celebration of their intimate relationship with the vegetal world.