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Among the Drupes (Elegy for a Wasteland)

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  • Cole Swanson
Cole Swanson
York University
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3197/whppp.63845494909751

Published 2025-02-24

Keywords

  • environmental justice,
  • staghorn sumac,
  • multispecies art,
  • urban ecology,
  • natural pigments

How to Cite

Swanson, Cole. 2025. “Among the Drupes (Elegy for a Wasteland)”. Plant Perspectives, February. https://doi.org/10.3197/whppp.63845494909751.

Copyright (c) 2024 Cole Swanson

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Among the Drupes (Elegy for a Wasteland) is an exhibition in communion with The West Toronto Railpath, an emergent ecology at the edge of ruin. Over eight months, I came to know the last remaining grove of staghorn sumacs (Rhus typhina) and their creaturely kin through foraging for and preparation of pigments. In this essay, I interrogate the biopolitics of the Railpath as a site of ongoing forms of displacement, producing mutualisms between Indigenous, queer and marginalised peoples alongside fated more-than-human others. Through harvesting lively colours, I demonstrate flows between ecological agents that antagonise divides between species and their dooming imaginaries. I draw connections between material art practice and forensic-ecology toward environmental justice for eco-assemblages marked for death by settler-colonial hegemonies. Finally, I demonstrate how art can aid us in bearing witness and, through acts of creative and community-based recuperation, provides hope in times of ecosocial grief.

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Research for this publication was supported by the Social Science and Humanities (SSHRC) Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship, and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship Program. 

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