Chornobyl’s Leaves and Flowers. The Botanical Trauma of Non-human Witnesses

The essay examines plant life as a non-verbal witness to the nuclear disaster that occurred at Chornobyl’ in 1986. It principally draws on the personal experiences of the philosopher Michael Marder and the photograms by the artist Anaïs Tondeur, as collected in the book The Chernobyl Herbarium: Fragments of an Exploded Consciousness (2016). Non-human witnesses, such as leaves and flowers, allow the authors to record varied responses to the traumatic event and also to ascribe a broader significance to the role played by a non-human agent, namely ionising nuclear radiation. Analysing the textual fragments and the photograms from The Chernobyl Herbarium, the essay focuses on the impact of Chornobyl’ from an autobiographical and philosophical perspective, as well as on its historical, scientific and theoretical implications, placing vegetal life at the centre of the reflection, as it becomes the fulcrum of the relationship between humanity and nature.