Angela YT Chan 
Organised with They Are Here, a collaborative practice steered by Helen Walker and Harun Morrison, I participated in their Micropolitics of Planting. As part of Arts Catalyst’s programme Test Sites, an ongoing inquiry into environmental change and communities’ responses to ecological challenges, the workshop was for practitioners to join ‘a conversation about the micropolitics of planting as a form of resistance and political experimentation.’ I presented my curatorial project Refuse: (v)(n)(-) in this opportunity to share ideas and engage with the work of other environmentally focused artists and researchers.
“We welcome submissions from artists, curators and researchers, scientists, community organisers and architects who are engaging with urban and rural ecologies through critical practices. As part of Arts Catalyst’s ongoing interest in the diseases of the city such as pollution and toxicity and in the possibility of healing through commoning practices, the workshop aims to bring together theories and practices that deal with social and political experiments within the realm of public planting, food sovereignty, agro-politics, and common use of land.
A number of perspectives, including art/science, activism and social practices will be explored during the workshop, thus bringing to the fore the potentialities as well as the criticalities entailed in the politics of planting and growing. Which forms of cooperation and social reproduction do these practices create? And how can these micropolitical processes become socially, ecologically and politically transformative?”
Find out more about Test Sites here