Plant Magic is a Berlin-based magazine published by hooops, a research club, publisher and travelling community library for books on medicinal plants and mushrooms.
Coordinated by sculptor and art therapist in training Astarte Posch and artist/bookseller Elisa Pieper, hooops is a platform for sharing, exchanging and storing knowledge about the potentials of local plants and substances that could be used in contexts of healing and therapy.
The second issue of Plant Magic brings together a range of artistic perspectives that explore the complex, resilient and sometimes contradictory existence of spontaneous vegetation we refer to as 'weeds'. Weeds, the publishers say, embody ambivalence and resistance, thriving in the cracks of crumbling worlds and wastelands. 'They whisper secrets of life that refuses to give up, of beauty that insists on being seen, of healing that happens stubbornly, even in the poorest of soils. Spontaneous flora reminds us that survival goes beyond mere endurance and becomes an art of thriving against the odds. They dare us to look beyond the obvious, to queer the gaze, and unearth worth in what is so often overlooked.'