We invite you to a plant workshop that will take place at Turnus na Wolskiej, on Sunday, September 14, from 12:00–3:00 PM. During the meeting, we will examine how language and images shape the perception of "invasive" species using the example of Canadian goldenrod: from memes and posts, through guides and press articles, to academic materials. We will explore how war metaphors and the rhetoric of "border defense" resonate with migration discourse and what "disappears from the frame" in such an approach, while also tracing the colonial routes of plant migration and their status transformations—from "decorative" to "threatening." After the analytical part, we will invite participants to a sensory encounter with the plant: touch, smell, and observation of its structure, to activate embodied, ethnobotanical knowledge beyond the label of "invasiveness." This will be accompanied by goldenrod tea and a brief discussion of its properties and herbal application contexts. The culmination will be a collective "rewriting" of narratives—speculative short texts and drawings will be created, treating plants as subjects, considering their agency, history, and corporeality, leading to a less oppressive and more relational language. The workshop's goal is not to avoid discussing environmental challenges resulting from the presence of a given plant or its functioning in the ecosystem—it is an invitation to broader reflection on the changing landscape and the language we choose to talk about these difficulties. We believe that by changing perspectives, we can design mindful and caring solutions—with an awareness of our entanglement in interspecies chains of agency. The workshop will be led by members of the Chwaściarnia collective: Anna Nowakowska, Marianna Łupina, Julia Krupa. 📅 When: Sunday, August 14, 12:00–3:00 PM (short breaks planned) 📍 Where: Turnus na Wolskiej, Wolska 46/48/Local 4, Warsaw We provide all materials, and the workshop will be conducted in Polish. The project was made possible thanks to financial support from the City of Warsaw and the Staromiejski Dom Kultury and accompanies the competition for Warsaw's Favorite Bookstore. Admission is free, registration required via the form: https://forms.gle/n9fjG4UdLEUs71Jo9 About Chwaściarnia: A collective of artists and researchers active since 2020; working with plants through foraging walks, mindfulness, and herb processing, building relational alliances with ecosystems. Since 2024, developing its own methodologies of artistic and ethnobotanical research (“Fitomisteria,” Czas Kultury 1/2023). The collective conducts workshops with diverse communities and collaborates with urban initiatives, promoting herbal knowledge as knowledge about plants and a self-help practice based on community-building activities. https://chwasciarnia.org.pl/ https://www.instagram.com/chwa.sciarnia/ Bio of facilitators: - Anna Nowakowska (she/her): Intermedia artist creating objects, installations, videos, and performances. Her artistic practice stems from mindfulness methods and somatic experiences. She is interested in human relations with non-human entities, broadly understood corporeality, and functioning in the contemporary world of late capitalism with all its challenges. In addition to visual arts, she also engages in poetry. Her works have been presented at events such as Turnus Show during the opening of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, in the library ziemniaki_i, the Polish Sculpture Center in Orońsko, and Galerie AVU in Prague. Graduate of the Media Art Department at the Academy of Fine Arts and Kem School. Activist in the Feminist Agreement March 8. IG: @_annnow - Marianna Łupina (she/her): Cultural worker, herbalist, enthusiast of performative walks, exploring new forms of coexistence with the more-than-human world. For 7 years, she has been associated with NGOs promoting reading and contemporary culture. She believes that collective reading can be an act of resistance against the contemporary crisis of imagination. Frequent visitor to wetland ecosystems, practitioner, and promoter of wild swimming. Her practice focuses on sensory perception of the landscape. Currently associated with the Bęc Zmiana Foundation. IG: @mania.lupina - Julia Krupa (she/her): Herbalist, artist, and researcher combining herbalism with artistic practice. PhD student at the Doctoral School of Humanities at the University of Warsaw, conducting the project "Herbal Path to Feminist Bioegalitarianism. Phytotherapeutic Practices in Poland in the Face of the Climate Crisis" since 2022, which includes ethnographic field research, interviews with herbalists, and artistic studies. Part of the doctoral project involves creating a publicly accessible Archive of Herbal Herstories. Graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Faculty of Painting (2021), with a master's thesis titled "Gatherer, Herbalist, Witch," exhibited at Lokal_30 gallery. https://www.juliakrupa.com.pl/
