55. Invasives at Home: Plants, Borders & Belonging in Contemporary Art

This panel focuses on plant-human relationships in contemporary art. We invite contributions that shed light on debates around the ambivalent status of invasive plant species and the anthropogenic histories associated with their movement across the British Empire.

Plants are sessile organisms whose survival is predicated on migration and adaptation; they care little about border zones and security areas. In contemporary Britain, no instance of plant mobility has provoked more resistance than the spread of invasive species. From the Latin ‘invadere’ meaning ‘to come into, go into, usurp, attack’, the term carries hostile connotations. Plants ‘in and out of place’, invasives are perceived as intruders and trespassers. Their mobility unsettles humans, exposing the most maligned excesses of anthropogenic cultivation. But when and how did plants become out of place?

Artists and art historians have critically evaluated how the legacies of colonialism have shaped the ways we relate to notions of landscapes, borders, and belonging.

We centre plants as biocultural entities with distinct environmental and social histories that have profoundly shaped human cultures. Contemporary responses by diverse artists, including Iman Datoo, Apnavi Makanji, and Yan Wang Preston, reveal how invasives offer a unique lens on the accelerated exploitation of nature in the modern period, compelling us to rethink our putative mastery over the planet. In our current political climate – steeped in anti-migration rhetoric, and the mobilisation of native/invasive categories – xenophobia is rife. Especially welcome are papers that critically examine the critical afterlives of green imperialism – as they inflect and inform visual art production.

Themes: Contemporary art, decolonial ecology, invasive species

Additional format comment: 4x 20-minute papers followed by 5-minute questions.

Lead Convenor: Orjana Rudeloff, University of Bristol, United Kingdom

Co-convenors: Emilia Terracciano, University of Manchester, United Kingdom

To submit a Paper to this Session, please follow the guidance on our website and complete the AAH 2027 Call for Papers Proposal Submission Form.