Radical Botany: speculative landscapes for uncertain times can be seen at the UW College of Built Environments Gould Gallery now until December 16 during regular business hours.
This past summer, students in the summer studio led by Elizabeth Umbanhowar presented their installation for the Seattle Design Festival titled “Future Food Forest: Radical Landscapes for Uncertain Times.” Their installation at the Seattle Design Festival represented what a loss of biodiversity would look like from the present into the future. Visitors could dye pieces of fabric at the altar presented in the middle of the archway that displayed different native Pacific Northwest plants.UW Department of Landscape Architecture design students created a built installation titled Future. Food. Forest. Radical Landscapes for Uncertain Times. As part of their proposal, this team was intentional about defining an afterlife for their installation.
The project now has a second life as Radical Botany: speculative landscapes for uncertain times. This reinstallation considers how urban forests can potentially help the loss of biodiversity that we are seeing in current times as well as how to cope with environmental grief, a common side effect of realizing the disastrous outcomes of a rapidly changing landscapes. The students have also worked hard to add improvements since its initial debut, adding new elements such as an environmental soundtrack, videos exploring plant “being-ness,” and an updated activity to replace the fabric dying done at SDF.