Plants as People, Fall-Winter 2021

It was a winter hike in upstate New York, in a seemingly neutral-colored tree forest, where I began to see the wide variety of mosses and the range of green colors popping out in front of me—from mint, dark green, an almost neon lime- that sent me back on this path of research on the intelligence of plants.

In her book Gathering Moss, Robin Wall Kimmerer writes “We think we are seeing when we have only scratched the surface…has the power of our devices led us to distrust our unaided eyes or have we become dismissive of what takes no technology, but only time and patience to perceive.” In her poetic words, I began to “see the world through moss-colored glasses” as I put together this collection, Plants as People.

It fascinated me to learn of an emerging discipline called “vegetal consciousness” which is basically the idea that plants don’t just learn, make choices, and remember, they also have some inner awareness, even emotional life. We share over 50% of our genetics with a maple tree. The carbon dioxide we exhale is made into sugar within seconds by the tree, and thus we are one organism, completely intertwined. We know that plants are intelligent, they make sophisticated decisions, are sensitive, they make sound, and even listen and react to sound—what if we consider them as persons?

Video by Jasdeep Kang

Starring
Alvina Bokhari
Harshvardhan Shah
Tara Raani

Hair - Christopher Nandalall

Makeup - Will Metivier

Art Direction - Sheena Sood

Assistant - Sirat Kaur

Thank you Papijuice for the studio!