Description

And we danced, on the brink of an unknown future,
to an echo from a vanished past.

­         –John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids (1951)

Shipping Roots shares lesser-known stories of plants being moved over oceans and lands, transported in the hulls of ships, as elements of the colonial legacies of the British Empire. Specifically, these stories link Australia, India and the UK and remind us that the entanglement of plants and people is inextricably tied to understanding place, as well as notions of belonging.

The book was published to correspond with Keg de Souza’s exhibition of the same name at Inverleith House, Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh (2023) as an expanded reader. It creates a narrative around plant species relating to the artist’s own cultural removal – as a person of Goan heritage ­– drawing from her experiences as a person whose ancestral lands were colonised, and as a settler on the unceded lands of the Gadigal people.

The book includes high quality photography of the exhibition alongside essays and recipes by numerous contributors, including Zena Cumpston, Brian Martin, Ashish Nerleker, Lucy Steeds, Claire G. Coleman, Henry Noltie, James Oliver, Jaya Bharathi, Undine Sellbach, Greg Kenicer and more.

Shipping Roots was generously supported by Outset, DFAT through the UK/AUS Season, Creative Australia, CreateNSW and Parramatta City Council.

The book was published by Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh.

Shipping Roots: Plant journeys through Empire is available for purchase here (includes shipping in Australia)