Monday June 23, 2025 | 1:00 PM
Location: Residency Unlimited
360 Court Street, Brooklyn NY 11231 (map)
In addition to taking place in-person at RU, this program will be streamed online via Zoom at this link.
Please join us for a public talk between RU artist Debora Hirsch, an Italo-Brazilian visual artist known for her interdisciplinary explorations of biodiversity, technology, and cultural memory, and Lucas Mertehikian, Director of the Humanities Institute at the New York Botanical Garden. This encounter delves into the emerging field of plant humanities, drawing from Hirsch’s ongoing artistic research into endangered plant species and biodiversity loss. The discussion will feature Hirsch’s recent work with AI-generated imagery, animation, and installation, through which she reimagines endangered plant species not as nostalgic relics but as speculative agents in a technologically mediated future.
Mertehikian works at the intersection of Latin American studies and plant humanities and will offer a critical perspective on how plants carry complex cultural narratives. In dialogue with Hirsch’s speculative and visual methodologies, he will expand the conversation toward the epistemologies that shape our understanding of plant life across disciplines, geographies, and temporalities. Together, they will explore how cultural practices can converge through the lens of plant humanities to amplify the social, political, and ecological significance of the vegetal world, and how this convergence can generate new ways of rethinking extinction, biodiversity, and the possibilities of regeneration.
About
Debora Hirsch is a visual artist whose work focuses on biodiversity preservation and endangered species, contemporary anthropology, and the influence of media and technology on culture and society. Her research-based practice often explores the lingering impact of colonial histories and the evolving relationship between humans and the plant world. In seeking to restore the complexity of the real, her artworks draw on multiple references—botanical, ecological, historical, and cultural. Progressing by associations and deductions is her favored method in producing paintings, videos, digital works, and installations. Her pieces often appear as elaborate snapshots of an ongoing inquiry, blending reinterpretations, theoretical reflections, and speculative visions. Born in São Paulo and based in Milan, Hirsch holds an MSc in Industrial Engineering from the University of São Paulo and an MBA from SDA Bocconi.
Lucas Mertehikian is the Director of the Humanities Institute at the New York Botanical Garden, where he has coordinated academic and public programs at the intersection of the humanities, horticulture, and the sciences on plant-people relationships. Among these, he oversaw the execution of the African American Garden: Diaspora, in 2024, curated by Jessica B. Harris, which drew approximately 50,000 visitors. He is also the co-organizer of the 2025 Plant Humanities Conversations series, in collaboration with Dumbarton Oaks, and the Historic Food Preservation series, with the Huygens Institute. Before joining NYBG, he was a postdoctoral fellow in Plant Humanities at Dumbarton Oaks. He was also the managing editor of the Plant Humanities Lab and the JSTOR Daily series “Plant of the Month.” He holds a Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures from Harvard University.
This program is supported by Hutchinson Modern & Contemporary, New York
