You would be hard-pressed to find a person with a complete lack of feelings towards “nature”. Even the most staunch urbanites have a type of environment, landscape or natural phenomenon to make them stop in their tracks or gasp a tad. In my opinion, it would be difficult to find someone without at least a drop of affinity, either conscious or unconscious, towards what we detachedly and anthropocentrically call “the natural world”. You don’t have to describe yourself as “outdoorsy” to be able to appreciate the beauty of morning dew or desert dunes.
Even despite our best efforts at drawing an artificial line, we ARE part of the natural world. We might be the equivalent of pampered houseplants but a lot of us are inherently drawn to our undomesticated origins to an extent. And just like the golden rule regarding good houseplant care, you have to fertilise them during the vegetative period from spring to early autumn so that they can have enough accumulated sustenance in their root systems to cushily survive winter. And then let new tender shoots and sprouts grow strong when the right season comes along.
Truth be told, this day and age doesn’t really allow the majority of us the luxury of taking a hiatus, to withdraw, burrow, contemplate and introspect. As the nights grow longer, we feel the natural need to slow down but the surrounding value systems and structures are not amicably geared towards this ebb and flow; on the contrary, they are indifferent and even hostile to such needs, categorising them as weaknesses.
For us, roots symbolise not only the physical anchors seeking sustenance but also the deep-seated ideas and concepts that underlie artistic expression. Embracing the beauty in the unseen and what is considered “ugliness”. It’s hard to overlook the rhizomatic support structures that have been in the spotlight in art circles and communities, especially in the past decade, and the “politics of care” that build and nourish them. What we want to do is to plunge our hands into these types of “soils and substrates” and fish for the most interesting fragments to proudly display on our windowsills and relentlessly show you, our readers, whenever you visit.
Let’s burrow
Yours
Team SWARM Mag
FOR YOUR READING AND LISTENING PLEASURE
Kov – román o metalu, Veselý, Karel
Witchcraft. The Library of Esoterica
Plant Magick. The Library of Esoterica
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Evil Roots: Killer Tales of the Botanical Gothic by Daisy Butcher
Tajná kniha Šerosvitu, kolektiv
The Green Witch by Murphy-Hiscock, Arin
Pagans – The Visual Culture of Pagan Myths, Legends and Rituals by Ethan Doyle White
Yoshihiro Narisawa. Satoyama Cuisine
Julia Watson. Lo—TEK. Design by Radical Indigenism
Bjarne Mastenbroek. Dig it! Building Bound to the Ground
The Book of Symbols. Reflections on Archetypal Images
Basilius Besler. Florilegium. The Book of Plants
Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari – A Thousand Plateaus
Bjork – Fossora
Paco Calvo – Planta Sapiens
Timothy Morton – Dark Ecology
