Project description

Plantmaxxing creates an imagination of a “super-plant” that combines different medicinal properties of traditional healing plants. The absurdity of this can be seen as a hint, pointing towards the potential of each plant – as a healing actor on its own. Instead of extracted or synthesized, isolated, active ingredients, healing plants can offer a full set of compounds that influence human health in a complex relationship. Those plants laid the foundation of modern western medicine and yet are often devalued or forgotten about. We wondered: how can we recontextualize and reconnect to this long-complied knowledge?

To create images, we first got into touch with local healing plants, through smell, touch and taste and later went on a field trip to film the plants in their habitat. We then collected information about those plants from different sources, e.g. online articles like Hippold, 2025, scientific articles, e.g. Grauso et al., 2020, a book on healing plants (Schmidt, 2004) and passed on knowledge that we knew of. Afterwards, we merged 3D models of the plants we found into the “superplant”. The sound of the video is derived from color information and through an effect made into the notes which can be heard.

This process allowed us to reconnect to healing plants ourselves and we hope that the video can bring others to question their relation to healing plants as well