Margins, Edges, Borders and Botany

Abstract

This presentation outlines the development, process and aims of the Botanic Laboratory Garden [Bot] [Lab] at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. This performance and space for research hosts an ongoing programme of curated research projects exploring the relationship between the ecology of urban land use, landscape(ing), well-being spaces and plant species specifically grown for use and harvest in scenographic and performance practice – dyes, pigments, textiles, scent and sound.

I will focus on the slipperiness of plant species and the crossing of borders with what Jessica J. Lee describes as “out of place” species. This is defined through Latin taxonomy and how we can explore migration of plants as “native” and “invasive” species within a shifting global migration, geopolitical boundaries and environmental climate. I argue this curatorial approach operates in an open dramaturgical form, rather than a fixed and completed architectural space, with porous borders - a fluid and shifting programme of performance research, navigating the integration of botany, edaphology and scenography of landscape. The transience or ephemerality of scenography in a botanic laboratory, in its very nature as a research centre, can challenge intentions of landscaping and cultivation as a colonial, constructivist human intervention.