Field Guide to Office Plants
71 pages, $15
A Field Guide for Office Plants is the story of a bored office worker who — after an encounter with the neglected Sansevieria plant in the reception area — is motivated to waste company time by covertly researching its fascinating botanical and social history. Increasingly curious about the plant, the office worker engages in what the philosopher Michel de Certau called la perruque — a strategy of resistance to the established order by doing ones own work disguised as work for one’s employer. While pretending to do her data research job she secretly investigates the history of the Sansevieria laurentii, from the time it was ‘discovered’ in the Congo during the brutal colonial period of Leopold II, to its use in NASA experiments to remediate toxins from office buildings. She compiles her research into notes for a Field Guide to Office Plants, complete with illustrations and photographs.
71 pages. 6″ x 6″. With original illustrations and photos.
Each copy is hand stamped.