Amanda Besl

 Natural history is my platform to discuss social issues. The contemporary “urban jungle” is constructed of houseplants whose origins and selection speak of power struggles, class issues and colonization while teetering to resolve a modern disconnect with the natural world. Botanical science was considered an acceptable pastime for women of the Victorian era, while simultaneously suggesting some darker, possibly arbitrary form of curation. The hierarchy of selection – essential in gardening – becomes sinister when considered through a human lens in which the sexual flush of flowers is liminal and the resilient are weeded out as the “invasive.”