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In this way, ecosophy avoids an exclusively scientific approach by embracing the microscopic and the intangible: it \u201cmust not be exclusively concerned with visible relations of force on a grand scale, but will also take into account molecular domains of sensibility, intelligence and desire.”^{2<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 2 <\/a> - Ibid., 28.<\/span> Ecosophy therefore suggests modes of recomposing human practices in all fields, particularly that of art, by paving the way to new ethical uses. Surprisingly rarely taken up since The Three Ecologies<\/em> came out in 1989, the concept of ecosophy, as defined by Guattari, proves to be especially pertinent for thinking about the contemporary. How does ecosophy translate to current art practices? Although artists may have rarely referred to the concept per se, do their practices not attest to comparable approaches?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cA society\u2019s approach to plants is also a mirror image of itself.\u201d^{3<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 3 <\/a> - Lois Weinberger, “Lois Weinberger: Green Man”, interview by Bergit Arrends and Jessica Ullrich, ANTENNAE: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture<\/em>, no. 18 (Fall 2011): 39.<\/span> The words of Lois Weinberger, who was one of the first artists to integrate plants into his work, resonate directly with the concept of ecosophy. Starting in the 1970s, Weinberger focused on promoting the advent of a society that is \u201cruderal,\u201d an adjective typically used to describe vegetation growing among urban rubble or in cracks. We need to rethink our societies based on our relationship to the plant world: this is the approach initiated by Weinberger, dubbed the \u201cgreen man,\u201d several decades ago and continued in an increasingly active manner by new generations of artists. Among them are \u00c5sa Sonjasdotter and Zheng Bo, whose work is not limited to an ecological aim or a sustainable form but integrates environmental issues with broader concerns. Through her fifteen-year project Potatoes\u2019 Perspective<\/em>, Sonjasdotter has been exploring the issues of knowledge and power related to the cultivation of potatoes, focusing particularly on concrete collective initiatives to promote the crop development of varieties that are on the verge of extinction because they do not conform to European Union standards. These projects incorporate and reveal the historical contexts in which they are placed; for instance, in High Diversity<\/em> (Paris, 2014), Sonjasdotter restores tubers that were developed to combat famine in the 1780s and then grown in symbolic gardens, such as the Tuileries, during the French Revolution. In works that are often multidisciplinary and developed jointly with local communities, Zheng uses wild plants as a symbolic medium of resistance and resilience. Weed Party<\/em> (Shanghai, Taipei, Turin, 2015\u2013ongoing), Kindred<\/em>(Shanghai, 2017), and Pteridophilia<\/em> (2016\u2013ongoing) show, with humility and sensuality, new ways of understanding our environment. For both of these artists, plants become both carriers and symbols of a paradigm shift that combines anti-speciesism, spatial valorization, micropolitics, and institutional critique.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Guattari explains, the ecosophical revolution comes down to an existential tension that \u201cwill proceed through the bias of human and even non-human temporalities[Il entend] which will lead to the opening up or, if you prefer, the unfolding, of animal-, vegetable-, Cosmic-, and machinic-becomings.”^{4<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 4 <\/a> - F\u00e9lix Guattari, The Three Ecologies<\/em>, 38.<\/span> This What might we understand by vegetable-becoming? It means not that human beings should imitate plants but that they should reinvent themselves by allowing the characteristics usually associated with vegetal otherness to develop in them at a microscopic level \u2014 which requires moving away from an anthropocentric approach in order to postulate equality among species. Such a movement can be found in the works of Sonjasdotter and Zheng, who celebrate plants\u2019 sensitivity, diversity, modes of interaction, adaptability, and even \u2014 as more and more botanists strive to show \u2014 intelligence. In keeping with Weinberger\u2019s metaphor, these gestures can be seen to reflect a society in transition to pluralism, interdependence, and nonviolence. This vegetable-becoming develops largely through the gaze: as Sonjasdotter explains, \u201cLooking at humans from the perspective of potatoes means seeing them from another angle. Basically, it\u2019s a new way of understanding them.”^{5<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 5 <\/a> - \u00c5sa Sonjasdotter, “Rencontre avec \u00c5sa Sonjasdotter”, interview by Agathe Ferin, Association du Bois Dormoy<\/em>, July 6, 2014, <boisdormoy.blogspot.com\/2014\/07\/rencontre-avec-asa-sonjasdotter.html> (our translation).<\/span> By examining the past of these tubers, she uncovers a slice of European history in which plants and humans seem inextricably linked to and interdependent on each other. Inspired by queer ecology, Zheng advocates equality among species and radically deconstructs the borders between them. The idea of vegetable-becoming is fully realized in his video series Pteridophilia<\/em> (liter\u00adally \u201clove of ferns\u201d), in which six naked young men have intense sexual encounters with plants in a rainforest in Taiwan. In the shadows of the undergrowth, human skin and vegetal membranes brush against each other, stems and tongues intertwining, in a surprisingly evident ballet. Here, plants are perceived no longer as vegetative beings to be exploited or decoratively used but as beings charged with sensitive and erotic potential that puts them on an equal foot\u00ading with human beings. Although the issue of consent remains in the blind spot of the filmed exchange, equality enters the bodies more profoundly, sublimating and legitimizing a desire traditionally perceived as deviant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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