Urban Ethnobotanist: Encounters with Place, Plants, and People
Photo courtesy of Qin HAO.
Biodiversity at Lianjiang Community, photo courtesy of Qin HAO.
Ethnobotanical Archive from Lianjiang, photo courtesy of Aki Lee.
Urban flora is increasingly recognized as a critical site of sustainability, climate adaptation, and everyday knowledge. This project transforms a community-based ethnobotanical archive of 107 plants into an open digital platform. Here plants are understood as agents in reconfiguring community identity and reshaping how knowledge is named, classified, and shared. The archive traces the relationships between plants, places, ecological conditions, and the memories and practices embedded in their use within the community. Each record integrates botanical nomenclature, Traditional Chinese Medicine properties, and community narratives grounded in daily practice. Together, they negotiate the epistemological position of embedded knowledge, questioning how knowledge is shaped, unlearned, and re-archived, and how locally rooted ecological wisdom travels responsibly into international contexts, reshaping how communities relate to place, health, and ecological memory.
Urban flora is increasingly recognized as a critical site of sustainability, climate adaptation, and everyday knowledge. This project transforms a community-based ethnobotanical archive of 107 plants into an open digital platform. Here plants are understood as agents in reconfiguring community identity and reshaping how knowledge is named, classified, and shared. The archive traces the relationships between plants, places, ecological conditions, and the memories and practices embedded in their use within the community. Each record integrates botanical nomenclature, Traditional Chinese Medicine properties, and community narratives grounded in daily practice. Together, they negotiate the epistemological position of embedded knowledge, questioning how knowledge is shaped, unlearned, and re-archived, and how locally rooted ecological wisdom travels responsibly into international contexts, reshaping how communities relate to place, health, and ecological memory.
- 2026
- Grantee: Aki Lee
Aki Lee (b.1992) is a Vienna-based Chinese artist, urban practitioner, and PhD candidate in Social Design at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Since 2014, she has engaged in governmental and private urban regeneration projects across multiple scales and contexts, developing a nuanced understanding of the interplay between bureaucratic structures and everyday life. Her research-driven practice centers on participation and artistic intervention, bringing situated knowledge and playfulness into processes of social transformation.