Ex Situ: Plants For a World Waiting to Germinate is a long-term project by the Italian artist and agroecologist Luigi Coppola aimed at rethinking our relationship with the earth, both from the point of view of humans and plants.
His book asks questions about the complexities and opportunities of an earthly site-specificity and makes a call for an alliance with plants. Plants, he says, 'allow us to tell sometimes painful stories and penetrate the stratification of history. Their roots inhabit it, and their seeds sprout, giving new meanings to it. The intensity and violence of enduring colonialism and its extractive processes imperil the planet. Here, the project aims to repair an ecosystem, and to act beyond the global economic system, including its values, narratives, teachings and institutions that produce our identity-driven, consumerist, nationalist societies. Acting with the culture of remedial plants, tilling the detritus of toxic ecosystems, and regenerating them, Ex Situ proposes cultivating a new sensibility of radical care.'
Kunstverein Publishing, 160pp, 17cm x 24cm, illustrated paperback, Fr/Eng text, 2023