This project is a radically decompositional invitation, which may or may not result in a perennial inflorescence of radical vegetal (non)sensibilities. The reader herein must endeavour to inhabit the role of a compost heap, or, if so inclined, inhabit the compost heap itself (may involve interesting odours). The root of the matter being that you are likely to be highly erroneous in your botanical comprehension of the vegetal world. Indeed, one might go so far as to say that the current botanical gardens of Western intellectual and scientific thought are not so much tended by botanists themselves, but rather the botanists are tended by the gardens.

In other words, this compost heap seeks to decompose the seemingly immutable multitude of hierarchies, narratives and structures that underpin the methods and traditions of botanical illustration. We will examine how traditional botanical illustration can be a “language of distance” (Kimmerer, 2013, p.49), reducing plants to isolated objects; rendered mechanical and strictly objective by the cold, (il)logical light of reason (Marder, 2021).

In our daring decay we might expose the symbiotic relationships and entangled histories of botanical illustration and colonial, capitalist, and heteronormative systems of oppression. Through the murky art of composting will attempt to create a radically inclusive (un)common ground and ask:

How might traditional botanical illustration be reimagined so as to subvert dominant colonial, capitalist, and heteronormative narratives?

Decomposition as a process is messy and amorphous and follows no tidy linear equation. In fact, it is not linear at all, and has no start and no end. It is constantly beginning and ending, an intricate web of growth and decay dancing an infinite number of cyclical waltzes everywhere all at once.
However, for the sake of this project, we will follow the form of a compost heap. That is, one of the ways humans have attempted to isolate the infinite cycles of growth and decay in which all life on Earth is engrossed into a nice, neat box.

The main material to be composted will be the practice, traditions, and methodologies of botanical illustration. There seems to be little agreement on a distinct definition of botanical illustration, so we will use a conglomerate of definitions, as follows:

I was also told in no uncertain terms by a scientist working at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew that botanical illustration is the way it is for a reason and that reason is that it is a scientific tool.


And so, Essence of Reason and some scientific tools will also be dutifully composted.

In order for the ecological community of a compost heap to deliquesce contentedly, it is generally thought that there needs to be a particular ratio of carbon to nitrogen. Some material contains mostly nitrogen, and some mostly carbon.

The aforementioned definitions are nitrogen-rich, as is the raw visual material (such as examples of traditional botanical illustration) that I have gathered along with the vegetable peelings, banana skins and stale crusts that are ordinarily thrown onto a compost heap.

Likewise, it is well known that the corresponding etymologies, histories and contexts of these definitions/images are very rich in carbon, as are leftovers of research that I have done, along with leaf litter, eggshells and unclaimed sticks.

The intricate cycle of decay is orchestrated by a polyphonic symphony of bacteria, nematodes, fungi, earthworms, arthropods, and other decomposers. Without them, we would all be neck deep in a slimy heap of biological leftovers.

Pssssst...follow the earthworms...

(The references for the images that appear in these animations, and the artwork above can be found in the reference list on the final page).