Left to Be Desired Episode 6: Zheng Bo on How Plants Practice Politics

Episode 6 of the SAVA podcast Left to be Desired features a conversation with artist Zheng Bo on the politics of plants on the occasion of their work Bamboo as Method at Somerset House in London. 

Left to be Desired is available to listen to on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music/Audible and Audacy. You can also access it via the podcast website: 
https://lefttobedesired.libsyn.com/site 

Left to be Desired podcast explores the distinctiveness of the socialist path through the Anthropocene by bringing together artistic and scholarly insights into the ecologies of global Socialism. Maja & Reuben Fowkes will invite artists and researchers to talk about their practice and exchange ideas at the intersection of ecology, climate change, art and the Socialist Anthropocene. 

How Plants Practice Politics with Zheng Bo 

In episode 6 of Left to be Desired, artist Zheng Bo talks to Maja and Reuben Fowkes about their ecological art practice, artistic perspectives on the histories of socialism and the installation Bamboo as Method at Somerset House. Meeting Bo again in London was an opportunity to find out about their distinctive approach to breaking down the barriers between humans and nature by reconnecting with plants. Of particular interest from a SAVA perspective are works that deal with the complex social and environmental histories of Chinese socialism, including the period of the Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s. The discussion also broached the issue of the particular forms of instrumentalization of nature under socialism and the extent to which plant resistance and agency was a factor in these entwined more-than-human histories. As the podcast suggests, the radicalization of their approach to botanical politics is driven by the urgency of the climate crisis of the Anthropocene.    

About the Speaker 

ZHENG Bo is an ecoqueer artist of ethnic Bai heritage. Through drawing, dance and film, they cultivate kinship with plants: ferns in Taiwan, moss in Scandinavia, beech trees in Germany, an umbrella thorn acacia in the Arabian Desert. For them, art does not arise from human creativity, but more-than-human intimacy. Their ecological practice contributes to an emergent planetary indigeneity. Recent projects include solo exhibitions at Gropius Bau and Göteborgs Konsthall, public commissions at Somerset House and Jameel Arts Centre, and participation in the 59th Venice Biennale. Their works are in the collections of Tate Modern, Power Station of Art, and Hammer Museum, among others. https://zhengbo.org/