ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Formalising a Collections-Based Plant Humanities Programme at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

• In Event: Plant Humanities 1 - Mapping an Emerging Field

English Abstract

The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh’s national botanical collections, developed over 355 years, represent biodiversity, culture, and place. They include a Herbarium of three million preserved specimens, a living collection of over 13,500 species, and an extensive research library, archives, and original artworks. These collections underpin RBGE’s activities, in particular our scientific and horticultural research to conserve plant and fungal diversity and inspire collaborations across the arts and humanities. The recently established Plant Humanities programme at RBGE aligns our interdisciplinary collections-based collaborations to Science and Biodiversity strategy and fosters focused partnerships that bring our scientific research into dialogue with social and epistemic questions. Broadly, our objectives are to study the histories of items in our collections, illuminate collecting and collections in the empire, use the gardens as living laboratories, study their benefits for health and wellbeing, and invite artistic responses to centuries of heritage. This presentation will discuss examples from throughout the programme and show how it complements scientific research, enhances the collections and their curation, and opens the collections for new interpretations.

Authors

• Olwen Grace, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

• Lorna Mitchell, Botanic Garden Edinburgh