Metabolic Herbarium
Plant–Body Relations, Image Making and Ecologies of Care
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Project and editorial design: paula roush
Pages: 52
Language: Portuguese and English
Format: folded publication
(A4 → A5, 26-page booklet)
First edition: May 2026
Published by: msdm publications
Ebook available for free download via payhip:
download PDF
How might a herbarium document relationships, transformations and forms of care?
Metabolic Herbarium is an experimental editorial publication developed within an ongoing artistic research practice exploring the relations between plants, bodies, image making and ecologies of care.
The publication proposes a metabolic field in which plants are approached through their actions and relations: how they interact with bodies, circulate across ecologies, enter material processes and participate in forms of transformation.
It brings together texts, photographs, workshop protocols and field notes developed through situated practice. The publication includes plant constellations, anti-colonial research in the Kew Gardens archive, and reflections on potions as situated compositions shaped through context, encounter and use.
The research is grounded in making: natural dyeing, solar printing with plants, preparing and tasting infusions, working with botanical materials, and observing how materials and bodies respond over time.
Metabolic Herbarium operates as a practice of attention. Plants, images and bodies are understood as interconnected processes, continuously shaped by contact, environment, circulation and care.
Designed as a portable publication, the booklet can accompany workshops, walks, conversations and individual study. It functions simultaneously as an artist publication, a field notebook and a pedagogical resource.
The publication was originally produced for the workshop Metabolic Herbarium / Potions (Plants, Images and Ecologies of Care), presented at HerbFest Portugal in 2026.
This digital edition is freely available as part of msdm publications’ commitment to open circulation, shared learning and collective use.
