The Dose Symposium

The Dose hosts artists, apothecarists, botanists, writers and theorists who will focus on one individual plant each, to highlight and celebrate the boundary workings and storytelling of plant knowledge.

Co-organised between the University of New South Wales and Queen Mary University of London, this symposium takes place virtually across two presentation days and one workshop.

Day 1 (9 September 2025 6-8pm AEST / 9-11am GMT) will be chaired by Giulia Carabelli.

Day 2 (10 September 2025 6-8pm AEST / 9-11am GMT) will be chaired by Prue Gibson.

Day 3 (11 September 2025 6-8pm AEST / 9-11am GMT) will be facilitated by Matthew Beach.

This event takes place between many lands and across oceans. We pay respect to the Traditional Owners of all unceded lands from where participants and audience members are joining—their Elders past and present—and acknowledge the ongoing legacies of colonial violence that connect Australia with the United Kingdom.

Banner image by Sadhbha Cockburn.

Schedule

9 September 2025

• 6:00-6:15pm / 9:00-9:15am Giulia Carabelli introduces the event and speakers
• 6:15-7:30pm / 9:15-10:30am Speaker presentations (Pokeweed/Sierra Snively Roark, Cassava/Liz Storer, Rhododenron/Mingcan Rong, Hellebore/Ann Shelton, Poison Ivy/Lindsey French, Mandrake/Kitty Silverman Linhardt).
• 7:30-8:00pm / 10:30-11:00am Provocateurs and general discussion
• 8:00pm / 11:00am Closing remarks and thanks

10 September 2025

• 6:00-6:15pm / 9:00-9:15am Prue Gibson introduces the event and speakers
• 6:15-7:30pm / 9:15-10:30am Speaker presentations (Cannabis/Alice McSherry, Coca/Imayna Caceres, Mugwort/Estraven Lupino-Smith, Datura/Seedsistas, Tobacco/Yogi Hendlin, Hogweed/Vitalija Povilaityte-Petri).
• 7:30-8:00pm / 10:30-11:00am Provocateurs and general discussion
• 8:00pm / 11:00am Closing remarks and thanks

11 September 2025

• 6:00-6:15pm / 9:00-9:15am Matthew Beach introduces and overviews the workshop
• 6:15-6:45pm / 9:15-9:45am Participants share their initially processed plate and accompanying plant
• 6:45pm-7:00pm / 9:45-10:00am Participants bleach their cyanotype plates
• 7:00-7:30pm / 10:00-10:30am Participants tone their plates
• 7:30-8:00pm / 10:30-11:00am Reflective discussion
• 8:00pm / 11:00am Closing remarks and thanks

Please note: there are (5) external spaces available for the workshop (the other 10 have been prioritised for presenters). This includes being sent a workshop packet of materials ahead of time. If you register for the workshop, you MUST send a postal address to m.j.beach@qmul.ac.uk as soon as possible to receive your packet. You may attend the workshop as a viewer without being a participant.

Participant Bios

Alice McSherry (she/her) is a teaching fellow in the School of Environment, University of Auckland Aotearoa NZ and an independent scholar-activist dedicated to a decolonising/re-indigenising ecological worldview(s), systems change, and more-than-human intelligence.

Ann Shelton is a New Zealand photographer and academic. Her recent book Worm, Root, Wort and Bane was published in 2024.

Estraven Lupino-Smith is an artist and researcher currently pursuing a PhD in Geography whose work explores human and more-than-human relationships, using weaving as a creative and collaborative method to engage with the cultural, political, and ecological ways that power creates and re-creates

Giulia Carabelli is a Senior Lecturer in Social Theory at Queen Mary University of London. She is the co-director, with Matthew Beach, of The Plant Forum, a platform that promotes collaborations between plants and people.

Imayna Caceres is an artistic researcher at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Institute for Art Theory and Cultural Studies, where they are a PhD Candidate in Philosophy of Art.

Kitty Silverman Linhardt is an ethnobotanist based in Los Angeles with an interest in historical folk practices of the dead, divination, and plants.

Lindsey French is an artist, educator, and writer focused on multisensory art and interspecies signalling, and currently teaches in the Department of Art at the University of Maine (USA).

Liz Storer is a Lecturer in Health Geography at Queen Mary University of London. She researches across a broad range of disciplines including geography, anthropology, development studies and public health, exploring forms of care which are not adequately valued by the state and international health actors.

Matthew Beach is an artist-researcher and educator working at the intersections between social practice and printmaking, geography, and education; and currently writing up his PhD at Queen Mary University of London.

Mingcan Rong (pronunciation: Ming Tsan) is a PhD candidate in Human Geography at the University of Bristol investigating the vegetal geography of Chinese rhododendrons at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

Prudence Gibson is a Lecturer in Environmental Art at University of New South Wales, Sydney, with a specialty of Plant Humanities. As an author her books include The Plant Thieves 2023, Dark Botany 2024, The Plant Contract 2018, Covert Plants 2018 and The Pharmacy of Plants 2015.

Seedsistas, also known as Fiona Heckels and Kaz Goodweather, are clinical herbalists with over 20 years’ experience, co-founders of Sensory Solutions, a CIC social enterprise blending traditional herbalism and modern wellness, creators of the Sensory Herb Oracle Cards, and authors of Poison Prescriptions and The Sensory Herbal Handbook.

Sierra S. Roark is a PhD Candidate in Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, fascinated with past and present human-plant entanglement.

Vitalija Povilaityte-Petri is a pharmacist and transdisciplinary researcher. She studies how medicinal plants, urban green spaces, therapeutic landscapes and traditional knowledge contribute to human connectedness with nature and regeneration of healthy ecosystems.

Yogi Hale Hendlin is an environmental philosopher and public health scientist, with appointments at Erasmus University Rotterdam and the University of California, San Francisco, and Principal of the Feral Ecologies Lab.