Publication

The chapter chronicles and reflects on the processes and the meanings behind GeoMerce, a speculative design project that revolves around the notion of phytomining. The work examines the design of Geomerce’s network of professionals, ranging from biologists, technologists, financial advisors, and how that enabled an exchange of voices and expertise.

The paper explores the issue of participation in multispecies networks. It examines Geomerce and Vegetal Rescuers— design works that merge plant research with ethnographies on vegetal agency in contaminated landscapes. By tracking plants’ metabolic processes, it shows how weeds can co-create unexpected more-than-human worlds.

The paper introduces a transdisciplinary methodology based on the tactic of “following” plant collectives. Building on post-humanism theories, sustainability is addressed as the implementation of a design attitude that involves learning by cultivating relations of multispecies reciprocity.