Can we break away from our human-centric view by understanding a plant’s perspective and its perception of the world?

A Mile In Their Roots explores this concept through first-plant narratives (as opposed to first-person), in which their sensory perception is conveyed in the form of poetry. The thesis narrative focuses specifically on five senses from the perspective of plants:

1. Proprioception (referred to in this project as gravity)
2. Sight
3. Smell
4. Touch
5. Time

The first three are important because they are the closest overlapping senses between plants and human beings. The last two are more complex, with proprioception not being known to most despite being the seventh human sense, and time being a proposed sense that I believe should be included in how we think about perception. Each poem is imagined to be authored by a different plant species with its own unique sensorial connection, as backed by scientific research and/or my personal experimentations respectively. Furthermore, the poetry is complemented by a digital interaction that allows a user to “decode” the displayed text, creating the illusion of translation from an unknown or foreign origin.

Experimentation: On Gravity, Smell, and Time

Poetry Teaser

Web: A Decoding Interaction