Byre World: The Holobiont Herbarium

Hosted by Dr Damiano Benvegnu, from the School of Modern Languages

Herbaria are collections of preserved biological specimens documenting the plants, algae, and fungi of the world. Even though their scientific role has declined since the 1980s, they have been foundational in the development of modern science and its processes of classification. In this event, Dr Damiano Benvegnù and Dr Harry Watkins discuss their Holobiont Herbarium project, which revises the role of herbaria in the late Anthropocene. This project aims to deconstruct the St Andrews Botanic Garden herbarium as a mere archive of scientific objects and reconstruct it as a new system of knowledge production capable of acknowledging plants, algae, and fungi as cognitive and historical agents embedded in multispecies narratives and ecosemiotic systems.

Running time: 1h 30m