Atlas of Collective Ecology
San Luis Obispo County ongoing
Why weeds?
“What emerges in damaged landscapes, beyond the call of industrial promise and ruin?” *
In a culture of binary systems for identity and morality, plants are subject to being good (native plants, ornamental plants, food crops, drought-tolerant plants, medicinal plants) or bad (weeds, non-natives, invasives). It can seem naïve or cynical to view the world of plants as more complicated than good versus bad, and to wonder what we can learn from plants, just as they are right now.
*quotes from Anna Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World
“Making worlds is not limited to humans.”
In this project, plants are observed as assemblages, read as a history of human (and non-human) passage, need, and desire, now gathered in the same place. A gathering for the 21st century, to tell us our own human history, to engage us in reflection about the possibilities of our shared future.
What is the ecology of compacted soils, heated by surrounding paving, watered only by rainfall, dusted by car exhaust, crossed and re-crossed? What can grow here at the end of care, the end of nature as we imagine it? Instead of the manicured visions of nature, garden, ecology that are framed and formed elsewhere, a space like this one reveals a picture of a kind of nature has been wrought across years by many hands, a kind of nature that thrives on the margin.
This project suggests four possible ways of encountering non-planted plants that may teach us about stories and worlds of our own unintentional, accidental, and collective making.
See things as they are, not as we’d like them to be.
What landscapes are possible in a hotter, drier place? We might read these places as harbingers for a coming climate, or we might reflect that this is what can grow here right now without any climate engineering (growing with what is already available). Does our dislike of these plants, how they act and how they look, warrant pumping water to irrigate a different, more pleasing plant? If we look closely, can we see a different type of beauty in these small, jewel-colored flowers, growing as a carpet so close to the ground?
Know your neighbors.
Many, but not all, the spaces in this project are roadside verges, parking medians, empty lots. With almost 400,000 miles* of road in California, likely you find yourself in contact everyday with some piece of this infrastructure, or its associated parking lots. Roads are disturbance, places where the ecological structure has been altered, and road and parking lot edges are not meticulously maintained. Do you recognize the plant neighbors that you pass by on your daily errands? (* The equator is approximately 25,000 miles, or 1/16 the total miles of road in California.)
Marvel at the wild within the controlled.
Gardening and ‘landscaping’ is an act of care, and an act of control. An act of shaping places to meet human ideals. Wild is imagined to exist in our national parks, in our ‘untouched’ places. But is this not a form of wild? That which is growing without human care or cultivation? Perhaps it is more fair to call if a post-wild, an emergence of a new form of wild after humans have shaped the environment around it.
Acknowledge collective ecologies.
Spaces like this are uncomfortable for many reasons. Can we acknowledge that although we did not intend the plant assemblages gathered here, they are a result of collective actions taken over decades, over centuries? Rather than paper them over with a more culturally-valued idea of plants, can we allow some of these spaces to remain and tell their story? Most of the plants found in these spaces are non-native, and found their way to California with Spanish colonization, or later settlers, immigrants, and refugees. Many are invasive and push out natives that cannot grow as robustly in the conditions of urbanization. All plants are suited to disturbed sites, to poor soils, to lack of water, or influxes of water contaminated with saline or metals. Some are native plants that have become in turn exotic invasive weeds in Eurasia as global traffic flows of goods and people continue to make their rounds.
in reflection about the possibilities of our sha
Vol. 1: 35.3012, -120.6655
Parking Lot
Diablo Clay
What grows on its own in a parking median? This space is not watered, nor planted. It is weed-whacked and occasionally sprayed with herbicide. Sloping slightly east it empties into a drain, and then a creek. It is crossed on foot by students and faculty cutting to their cars, their classes, their offices, and shaded in the afternoon by vehicles. Its purpose is unclear, demarcating territory between one type of programmed asphalt (parking) and another type (delivery corridor). A medium-size oak guards the western corner, along with a blue safety call button post. Trash comes and goes, a shifting mosaic of campus life.
Observations of the median began in April 2025, and while at first glance the space seems empty, at least 23 species of plants have been seen inhabiting the 600 sf median. In comparison, a similarly sized planting area in a maintained part of campus holds only 6 species.
Observations
Click on images to learn more
The Site
