About
(De)colonial Plants is a platform for interdisciplinary learning and collaborative research. Its growing digital archive seeks to challenge dominant narratives and amplify alternative ways of understanding ecological crises.
This workshop, (De)colonial Plants: Share Your Plant Stories Listening Workshop, marks the beginning of a co-archiving project to create a digital decolonial library. Designed to bring together researchers, practitioners, and the wider public, the workshop explores how colonial exploitation of crops such as cocoa, palm, coffee, and sugar has shaped today’s climate crisis and left lasting social and environmental legacies.
Through a listening workshop and the creation of a physical decolonial library, participants will engage critically with these histories and be invited to share their own plant stories. By tracing connections from the colonial era to contemporary unsustainable production, the project critiques climate solutions centred in the Global North while foregrounding perspectives from the Global Majority.
This event is part of the Ancestral Plants: Anarchive project, led by Neba Sere and Umi Lovecraft in collaboration with UCL Grand Challenges. It also forms part of a wider programme of events taking place throughout the day on Saturday 20 September at the Design Museum, as part of Design Researchers in Residence: Artificial, in Conversation, linked to the Design Researchers in Residence: Artificial exhibition.
Drinks and refreshments will be provided and photography and recording will happen during the event. If you do not want your picture taken please contact Neba Sere via email (n.sere@ucl.ac.uk) in advance.
Speaker Biographies
Neba Sere is a Spatial practitioner, Associate Professor at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, and Director of Decolonising and Decarbonising Organisational. She co-leads the London-based collective, decosm, which aims to address social, environmental, and spatial inequalities. She is also the Co-Director of Black Females in Architecture. Her previous roles include working as a Senior Project Officer with the Greater London Authority's Regeneration Team and leading youth projects at Build Up Foundation, where she is now a Trustee.
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/events/2025/sep/decolonial-plants-share-your-plant-stories-listening-workshop
