This project involved a multispecies mode of collaboration with designer and researcher Gionata Gatto, biologists from the Environmental Sciences group of WUR (Wageningen University & Research), and some species of hyperaccumulator plants.

The project, explores the theme of post-industrial soil pollution from a hyperaccumulator-eye view. Vegetal Rescuers asks in what ways a contaminated site could open to alternative modes of human/plant interaction, and whether this could lead to multispecies forms of resilience and dwelling. Vegetal Rescuers looks at the contaminated territory as an occasion for developing novel formats of Multispecies Participatory Design mediated by non-normative communication; here, remediation of polluted soil through technocratic lenses, but more as an experiment in plant agency, participation, and cultural resilience. This project aim to bring together the experiences of multiple actors such as inhabitants from comunities living nearby polluted sites, activists, hyperaccumulator species that sponteniously popolate those territories, designers, biologists and envariomentalists.

The pictures below illustrate the Participatory workshops done with scientists at WUR, based on speculative scenarios oriented to discuss different types and modes of pollution of soil, water and air. The results of the workshops at WUR led us to design the foundation of Vegetal Rescuers. The project consists of two interconnected elements. The first is the digital database, VEGETALRESCUERS.ORG, a platform designed for informational purposes about hyperaccumulating flora. The second part of the project includes public engagement actvities, aimed at initiating in-situ processes of Multispecies Design.

Vegetal Rescuers is a long term research project, initited in 2019 and still ongoing. More information and outcomes will be shared in due course.