JASON MOAD

Philosophically, I lean towards Animism. That is to say, I think personhood is not exclusively the province of human beings. Indeed, if one starts from the perspective that consciousness is fundamental, non-human persons are to be found everywhere. This has lately been recognised in law, where certain sacred mountains and rivers are concerned in New Zealand. Even if this strikes one as a bit of a stretch, the current renaissance in botanical research is proving such startling propositions as trees in forests communicating with each other via vast, underground mycelium networks; and a study at the University of Western Australia in 2014 demonstrated that at least some plants, despite not possessing brains or nervous systems, are none-the-less capable of learning and memory. There is also a resurgence of interest in the scientific community in plant psychedelics, like psilocybin-mushrooms and ayahuasca, and their effects on and interactions with consciousness.I have not been comfortable with viewing humans as the crown of creation, separating animals into higher and lower life-forms, and treating plants as something on the side, definitively banished to a lower level.that the ordering system we have today is not scientific but rather influenced by cultural, historical, and religious values.

Human beings, at least since the enlightenment, have tended to categorise and rank organisms in hierarchies, separating the natural world into higher and lower life-forms.  Far from scientific, this is a system influenced by historical, cultural and religious values.  I have tended to paint plants as subjects, rather than objects.  In my work they represent the other than human, largely on the basis of the work currently being done by a few brave scientists and philosophers.  Plants and fungi, it turns out, can feel pain, be anaesthetised and probably, in some way, even see.  There is increasing speculation that they possess some form of consciousness.  We like to see ourselves as seperate from nature, as the inevitable pinnacle of evolution.  One need only look around to see how that is working out for us.  The truth is, we live in a world full of persons and, as an animist, I’m keen to point out that only some of them are human.