Work from summer 2023’s LARC 582L/DES 450L: Transformative Botanical Representations, led by Divine Ndemeye and supported by TA Meredith Wilson, has been shared in a new publication.
The course was guided by a main area of inquiry: How can we relate to and document plants in ways that acknowledge their sacredness and agency and lead us to better relations? Students were challenged to engage in discourses and practices to disrupt the Eurocentric visual narratives in botany and planting design. The resulting projects employ a multitude of representational methods and ways of working, informed by critical discussions of positionality, ancestry, culture, and intersectionality.
Acknowledging that we work and learn on the unceded, unsurrendered, and ancestral homelands of the Hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ and Sḵwxw̱ú7mesh Sníchim speaking peoples of the xwməθkwəyə̓m (Musqueam), Sḵwxw̱ú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples, the course aimed to center a respect-based design lens of MST and Indigenous sovereignty, and Afrofuturism.
View the publication below, or download it here.
Divine Ndemeye is a landscape designer, artist, educator, and alumni of the SALA Master of Landscape Architecture program. She is the Founder and Principal of Remesha Design, as well as the founder and Co-Director of the Black+Indigenous Design Collective. She is also the host and producer of the Design unmuted podcast, a platform that elevates marginalized voices in design, art and all things creative.
Students featured
Haley Adams
Nabil Basri
Elliot Bellis
Connor Budd
Sabrina Careri
James Gray
Zahra Hirji
Kylie Ip
Ellen McElroy
Isobel McLean
Mackenzie Parry
Lana Radomsky
Angelica Ragandac
Jennifer Reid
Cynthia San
Madelaine Snelgrove
Lucas Wang
Kaitlin Wiebe
Ang Zhai