Exploring Empathy Project: Empathising with Vegetal Beings
- Written byTien-Tzu Lin
- Published date 14 July 2022
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Being a part of the Empathy Project across CCW, led by Dr Lee Campbell, is an excursion during my MA Illustration programme. Followed by a series of presentations from lecturers, guest speakers, and postgrad students across CCW, the project has shed some new light on my ongoing illustration practice, which aims at reflecting upon the relationship between humans, weeds, and urban spaces in the backdrop of anthropocentric society.
According to Collins Dictionary, empathy is the act of understanding and imagining. It is the ability to fully engage with the other side of the party no matter whether they are an individual, a race, or a species. As a mental endeavour, empathizing with living forms that are so drastically different from us, in this case, vegetal beings, has ecological and metaphysical significance. Enhancing this awareness could probably provide a solution to “Plant Blindness”, the term coined by US biology educators Elisabeth Schussler and James Wandersee meaning “the inability to see or notice the plants in one’s own environment” due to cognitive and cultural factors. In the plant kingdom, weeds probably have the most ambivalent position. They are defined as such due to their lack of desirability by human beings, whereas they have the most intricate connection to human society. The nature writer David Quammen sees them as “aggressive, versatile, prolific, and ready to travel”, which are traits shared by Homo Sapiens. This intrinsic resemblance between humans and weeds and how they coexist and interact in urban spaces is the starting point of my research inquiries.
In the Empathy Project, I got a chance to explore how empathy can relate to my current project. More specifically, in contrast to animated beings, how do we understand weeds as static living organisms and empathise with them? Assuming that we find it challenging to fully experience their life cycle because we are biologically different, I focus my investigation on how to elevate their presence so as to invite humans to contemplate their existence and their relationship with us. I position myself as a data analyst and start my research by tracing weeds from photography. By tracing the contour of weeds on the photos I take on ordinary street corners, I intend to retain their subjectivity. The medium—the marks made by colour pencils and the transcription of relief ink—transcribes rather than translates my subjects. Considering how materiality generates more emphatic engagement, in one of the experiments, I try to depict weeds with embroidered motifs on partly transparent tracing paper on top of the monotoned hand-drawn street corner scenes. The act of removing/covering the layer invites the spectators to contemplate the essence of weeds’ beings.
The inquiries into empathy have played a symbolic role in the initial stage of my project. As one of the post graduate members of the Empathy Project, I am glad that in the past few months, I was able to immerse myself in a space packed with provocative insights, exploring empathy from psychological, pedagogical, political, artistic and other perspectives. The most important takeaway for me is that empathy can never be reached; however, challenging ourselves by pushing our boundaries further to recognize and accept the differences between ourselves and others will generate a better understanding of how we can situate ourselves in this world. Through this inquiring journey, hopefully my illustration practice will encourage an imaginative conversation between humans and weeds, the humble beings that silently thrive not only at our feet but with our utmost care and attention in our heart.
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