Graduation Year

2026

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Art

Second Department

Media Studies

Reader 1

Professor Aly Ogasian

Reader 2

Professor Kim-Trang Tran

Terms of Use & License Information

Terms of Use for work posted in Scholarship@Claremont.

Abstract

In a world in which growth and survival are often framed as naturally competitive processes, where resources must be hoarded for self-interest and advancement, the reciprocal systems crucial to the survival and cooperation of life forms within plants prove not only the importance of connection and reciprocity, but their far-reaching potential for alternate structures that privilege mutual growth and sustainability. While plant intelligence is often scientifically contextualized, there is much mystery surrounding the fascinating network of interconnection within the mycelial network: communication and resource exchange between plants and pollinators or fungi can be viewed magically as a larger web of interlinked life. Looking closer at these interconnected natural systems, we can begin to re-enchant our awareness of the world around us by exploring the microcosms of the plants that we use or encounter on a daily basis.

My artwork explores the reciprocal worlds of the hibiscus plant. Three prints focus on cycles of pollination, mutualistic resource sharing, and communication via the mycorrhizal network. Through looking closer at cyclical, mutual, and sustainable cycles of life within the natural life we encounter, my project aims to highlight the interconnectedness and cooperation of different life forms occurring around each individual plant we encounter in order to reframe survival and growth as a collaborative and intertwined experience between all life. I argue that reciprocal processes offer new types of sustainable relationships that humans can learn from and become re-enchanted by. In my artwork, I visualize this world of connection by structuring my prints in a layout that begins with one print above ground depicting the hibiscus and the hummingbird engaging in mutualistic pollination, then delving below the soil into a wider universe of the mycelial network. This layout encourages the viewer to consider the entirely hidden world beneath each plant through looking past what we see with our eyes and into the web-like structures that connect living beings, hidden from our eyes yet intimately connected to our own existence.

Link to Image Gallery

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/14GclGyUKCMvIWN89b334oaXqYKQsEA_E?usp=sharing

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