Geo-speculating with a hyperaccumulator: A former mine in North-Rhein Westfalia from the viewpoint of a Arabidopsis Halleri

This paper considers a series of field-work activities conducted at the intersection of three main subjects: a speculative design installation, a plant ecotype of the hyperaccumulator Arabidopsis Halleri and a heavy metalcontaminated site located in North-Rhein Westfalia, Germany. The paper offers a “geo-speculative” (Gabrys, 2016, p. 139) account of a brownfield, considering how vegetal agency might open onto alternative opportunities of becoming for a polluted territory. At the core of this work is the question of how an empirical approach towards research in multispecies environments allows for a transdisciplinary mode of site-writing and can be used as ground for speculating about the future of a land. Ultimately, while reflecting on the imbroglio of scientific, ecological and speculative elements explored during the research, this work proposes that a science-informed “act of viewing” vegetal life (Gabrys, 2012) can support the exploration of more than-human functions and motivate the emergence of speculative processes associated with past and futures of an anthropized environment.