Plant agency and planetary health

Nature needs to be known for its own sake and not only in relation to how societies gain power over it or subvert it for human benefit.Rooted Beings’ installations, objects, art, and immersive experiences also offer ways to consider plants, fungi, and algae as embodied entities, replete with agency. The majesty of the forest is captured in the details of the leaves, tiny in comparison to the trunks, as they might appear when seen from below. A Great Seaweed Day: Gut Weed (Ulva Intestinalis), Ingela Ihrman, mixed media sculpture, 2019/Courtesy of Kiasma, Finnish National Gallery and the artist Such appreciation of the value of the plant world feeds into urgent concerns about the planet's life support systems and planetary health. Forest ecologist Suzanne Simard's years of work, distilled into Finding the Mother Tree, shows Douglas fir trees know and preferentially help their own “children” through extensive fungal networks associated with their roots.