Henry Jonathon Conversation

The collaboration between conceptual artist and experimental philosopher Jonathon Keats and media scholar Henry Jenkins and the Civic Imagination Project (an initiative of Civic Paths at USC) came to be in 2021 when we all started to explore the idea of a "plant-based democracy" and how it could change how we relate to plants and the environment. What if plants become co-creators and collaborators in our society? How would we listen to them? How might we imagine with them? In this excerpted conversation, Jenkins and Keats explore how imaging with plants might lead to more participatory, radically-democratic, and sustainable futures.

Working through tensions that emerge when we approach talking with plants versus having communities talk through plants, they discuss the unique context that Los Angeles, a city that has at times been at the forefront of cultural and environmental trends, brings to this conversation, as. Throughout this conversation, Jenkins and Keats emphasize engaging with diverse voices and perspectives to explore this provocative idea, laying out the foundation of this collaboration.