The word plant emerges from two Latin origins: planta, to sprout; and plantare, to fix in place. One origin insinuates movement, the other stasis. This modest etymology suggests an entry into the central argument of Rosetta Elkin’s research: plants are objectified as a fixed form of human knowledge such that it is difficult to appreciate their aliveness. Elkin will discuss the possibility that a plant is a process, a swarm of activity, and a dynamic planetary force, in order to learn how new types of practices can emerge in the reciprocal relations, or co-production, between plant and human life.

Rosetta S. Elkin is the Garden Club of America Rome Prize Fellow in Landscape Architecture at the American Academy in Rome and Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. She is also associate at Arnold Arboretum.

The event will be held in English. You can watch it at https://livestream.com/aarome.