Martyna Dziadek

Ruderal ecologies can be regarded as places where more-than-human actants start to operate. In this article, places abandoned by a man, are called “prospective ruination” to emphasize the verb of decomposition function and to reorient the cognitive perspective of decay into the future, understood as a new human and more-than-human ruderal assemblages of culture-natures. The author of this text truly believes, that providing this kind of view, expands the Polish imaginary related to the rubble, reorienting the perspective of decay, to the vibrant more-than-human agencies and forces. The subject of the research reflection on ruderal ecologies (Caitlin DeSilvey), which constitute a. living archive, is Karolina Grzywnowicz’s project Weeds exhibited in 2015 at Zachęta in Warsaw. By introducing the term “biomnemonic witness” (gr. Mnemosyne, goodness of memory), the author emphasizes the subjectivity of the plant kingdom and its floral agencies in creating cultural and biological entanglements. The coda of the sketch problematizes the notion of a living archive and determines the trajectory of getting out of the anthropocentric cognitive impasse.

The main aim of this article is an attempt at mapping the preventive strategy in the epoch of climate and ecology crisis through the lens of (post)humanities. Drawing upon posthuman perspectives, as well as methodologies and research tools, I will try to grasp the complexity of reality through relational ontologies, which linked Anthropos with the plant kingdom. As Małgorzata Praczyk pointed out, posthumanism is still not so investigated in humanities (especially in the historic field), and even when it finally appears, ended up at counterproductive reductionism. Trying to avoid this impasse, the author of this text is using the method of morphing history which allows changing the perspectives from anthropocentric one to the plants, thus polyphonic assemblages (A. Tsing) enables to re(present) the other and multispecies agency. Finally, I will map the possible perspectives in an epoch of Anthropocene according to the statement: “the environmental crisis brings a crisis of imagination”(L. Buell). In that sense, rethinking humanities with indigenous knowledge(s) is strongly needed as well as “deep adaptation” (J. Bendell) in order to understand that “humans interact not only with each other, but in all times, places and context of ecosystems, and are affected by them” (R.C. Foltz).