Recent scientific research is opening the door to the possibility that plants are far more “intelligent” than we might have imagined. Rigorous, repeated studies are  increasingly revealing that plants have the capacity to integrate sources of information, make decisions, and retain sufficient memory to perform predictive modelling (P. Calvo, 2017). There is in fact some indication that plants may have the structure and capacity to form some level of basic consciousness, including the discovery that electrical impulses similar to those transmitted in the neurons of complex vertebrates are evident in plants. What was once a fringe idea has evolved into a seriously regarded field termed “plant neurobiology”. While this doesn’t necessarily mean that plants are self aware (your fern is probably not experiencing an existential crisis), it does provoke a range of ethical and philosophical questions that bear examination.

By conducting a Zoom call with plants around the world, we were not expecting a rousing conversation, but we hoped that it might inspire those of the homo sapiens species to consider that it may be “like something” to be a plant. By turning the tables and creating a tableau of plants gathered around cameras in far flung corners of the world, we aspired also to stimulate thought about our own methods of communication, particularly during the Covid era when Zoom calls became a major source of connection for many.