Open Access publication INSERT #7 on the research project ‘Plants_Intelligence’ at the HGK Basel

The seventh edition of the open access publication platform INSERT, edited by Yvonne Volkart and published on 28 August 2025, is entirely dedicated to the ‘Plants_Intelligence’ research project based at the HGK Basel.

The seventh edition of the open access publication platform INSERT – Artistic Practices as Cultures Inquiries, which will be published online on 28 August 2025 at 6 p.m. with an official go-live launch in the Palm House of the Old Botanical Garden of the University of Zurich, is entitled ‘Plants_Intelligence: Towards a Vegetal Aesthetics’ and is entirely dedicated to the research project of the same name, which is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and based at the HGK Basel. Edited by Dr Yvonne Volkart, Head of Research at the Institute Art Gender Nature (IAGN) at the HGK Basel, the issue brings together authors who are looking for adequate artistic representations of plant life.

“That’s the beauty of engaging with plants. Every artist has the freedom to craft a new aesthetic to foreground the specificity of a plant species or an individual one. Each plant will propose different modes of specific aesthetic registers,” states art historian Giovanni Aloi in an interview conducted by Yvonne Volkart for this edition of INSERT.

The edition INSERT #7 was created as part of the SNSF project ‘Plants_Intelligence’ at the HGK Basel and in collaboration with the research focus ‘Cultural Analysis in the Arts’ at the Department of Cultural Analysis at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) and brings together the following contributions under the title ‘Plants_Intelligence: Towards a Vegetal Aesthetics’:

Editorial #7: Plant Intelligence – Towards a Vegetal Aesthetics / Yvonne Volkart

Days Are as Grass. On Karel Miler’s “Felt by Fresh Grass,” Plant Intelligence and Expanded Aesthetics / Matthew Fuller

Jajañe—Chagra—Garden / Felipe Castelblanco, Ayênan Johnquinchoa Juajibioy and Nataliauribe Macías

Open-Air Laboratory. An Approach from the Perspective of Plant Aesthetics. / Noelia Billi

Aroma Colorado / Julia Mensch

Forest. Suite for the Anthropocene / Cate Sandilands

Speculative Conceptual Strategie / Giovanni Aloi und Yvonne Volkart

Dividual Interweavements. Linguistically and Algorithmically Staged / Ursula Damm und Michaela Ott

AI Herbarium. Flowering Plants as Inventors of Their Own Existence / Rasa Smite

INSERT. Artistic Practices as Cultural Inquiries is an open access publication platform seeking to bring together artistic, scientific and curatorial practices in the frame of culture analytical research. It grasps art as a potential space for critique both in an analytical and transformative sense. The individual thematic issues of INSERT gather contributions that pursue questions related to the extent to which self-reflexive, aesthetic practices are capable of analyzing cultural constructions, their politics and modes of operation.

INSERT was developed in 2020/21 by Sigrid Adorf, Noëmie Stähli and Julia Wolf at the Research Focus Cultural Analysis in the Arts at the Zurich University of the Arts in the frame of the SNF research project „“ Insert Citation. Artistic-Scientific Analyses of Cultural Processes of Transmission. The issues (usually two per year) are dedicated to different thematic focuses under the responsibility of alternating editors.

The research project ‘Plants_Intelligence: Learning Like a Plant’ (Yvonne Volkart, Felipe Castelblanco, Julia Mensch, Rasa Smite) is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and is affiliated to the Institute Art Gender Nature (IAGN) at the HGK Basel.

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