Botanycaring: Rethinking human-plants relationship through caring sensory interfaces Humans-plants relationship is known since ancient times. Nevertheless, our relationship with nature is everything but “natural” and it is an artificial construct derivative in dynamics of control focused in human well being, such as food, medicine, contemplation and even company. Botanycaring starts from a personal inquiring about our affective and intimate relationship with plants. What if we can extend our care and intimacy rituals to non humans like plants, using not only our rituals but our body sources?
Botanycaring discusses the need to design artifacts – meaning artificial – to re think our relationship with plants by changing its dynamics of power. Also, it looks forward to provoking questions and design explorations that ask about how we can design nature within ecologies of care, integrating the feminist perspective of care in techno-science thinking.In this spirit, an exploration of substances and human body–plants sensory artifacts was proposed. Botanycaring explores what happens if home plants dynamics and relationship are based upon and driven by human body resources, intimate gestures and rituals, designing the above for more-than-human worlds and skins.
The collection proposes 6 artifacts/interactions:
Watering Tears: A face mask that collect human tears to water and clean plants. The mask can be used directly to water small plants through a serum cable or it can be storage in a perfume bottle with a spray dispenser.
Kidney Garden: An exo-kidney object that collect human urine and process it to water, and nitrogenate domestic plants. Is made or two plastic containers that resemble kidneys and a serum cable. Urine is full of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus, which are the nutrients plants need to thrive—and the main ingredients in common mineral fertilizers.
Human perfume fertilizer Pill: This a speculative piece that propose a pill that human can intake, then liberating chemical perfume that will act as nourishment and fertilizer for their own plant.
Seeding the Moon: An artifact that allows you to sync your menstrual cycle with the growing cycle of a plant. This is still in progress.
More-than-human skincare: A “serum” for plants made of human urine (that contains nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus and zinc) diluted in human tears, this is packed in a glass bottle with a dropper.
My life will be yours: A human blood transfusion object to nourish plants
Project presented at the Sixth Biennial Design Science Symposium: Inclusive narratives from nature, at Rhode Island School of Design in September 2019
Credits:
Concept and design: Diana Sánchez
Photography: Diana Sánchez
Model: Glenda Aune
Photography Assistant: Mariana Santos
Make up: Sindy Rodríguez
Studio and Lighting: Rabbit Hole Studio – Adrian Jursich
DIANA SANCHEZ BARRIOS 