Spontaneous Vegetation

Stephen is an interdisciplinary, independent scholar, polymath, and author or 23 books (and working on others), numerous articles, and essays and have achieved some mastery in a variety of subjects a few being bacterial ecology, resistance dynamics; plant intelligence and ecology, human psychology and psychotherapy, biological self-organization; nonlinearity; contemplative spirituality, transcultural epistemology and more. www.stephenharrodbuhner.com Contains mild profanity. An edited version of this interview was aired on Lumpen Radio, in two parts.

Stephanie Gottlob is a somatic improvisational movement artist. In 2019 she bought a truck camper and has been on the road for three years, exploring movement improvisation, somatic experience, and creative process throughout the various natural biomes of North America - deciduous forest, lake, tundra, swamp, grasslands, river, desert, temperate rain forest, and boreal forest.

Angela is the current supervisor of the Onondaga Nation Farm. The farm practices all aspects of Food Sovereignty for their community. She is also one of the original organizing members of Braiding the Sacred, an all indigenous group of Traditional Corn Growers across Turtle Island. Her many passions include Haudenosaunee Traditional Agriculture, Seed Caring, Bee Keeping, Foraging, Traditional Cooking Methods, Knowledge Sharing, Haudenosaunee Nutrition Education, Youth Mentorship, & Traditional Hide Tanning.

Uncle Bear Klein is a Content Creator, Trainer, Life Coach, and Designer of Powerful Life Transformational curriculum. He/they have over 20+ years of experience leading workshops in Chicago and across the country. Uncle Bear seeks to facilitate and witness transformation and unite the head with the heart while at the same time savoring the honey of Life! He strives to live and create work honoring his five Core Values: Connection, Courage, Compassion, Curiosity, and Creativity. Cover image via http://www.unclebearsrodeo.com

School for the Ecocene hosts programs and is also an eco-social network for sharing resources, inspiration and actions for planetary liberation. The Ecocene is an emergent geologic era where all beings are living in relation and reciprocity with their ecosystems again. Sarita and Este are two of its stewards transforming the School into a worker-owned Cooperative www.ecocene.net

Margaret Bardell and her husband manage Chestnut Cliff Farm. The farm aims to raise the highest quality specialty organic produce, maple syrup, free-range eggs, grass-fed beef, herbs, foraged foods such as mushrooms and wild plums, unique cut flowers, and more. They are located in Freeport, Illinois at the edge of the Driftless and are converting to no-till, regenerative methods to support soil biology. Chestnut Cliff Farm - Bardell Family - Market Garden - Organic @chestnutclifffarm

George Johnson is a 96 year old elder who has had a long practice of native prairie restoration and preservation. He is a library of history of the confluence of human use of land, native prairie and agriculture in northern Illinois.

Gwyneth Zeleny Anderson is an artist based in Chicago, living where the Ojibwe, Odawa, Potawatomi, Miami, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Sac, Fox, Kickapoo, and Illinois Nations have called home. She animates out of devotion to the fluidity and multiplicity of everything, focusing on sensations and experiences of isolation that are avoided by dominant culture. As a depressive person, the animation process is a crucial, steady reminder that nothing is really stuck or alone. Every project is a spell to transform the violence of isolation, and celebrate each other as interconnected, weird phenomena. She has presented work in galleries, forests, and empty lots around the northern hemisphere. https://gwynethvzanderson.com/section/89319.html gwynethvzanderson.com

Cathi Schwalbe is a maker of objects including mixed media, sculpture, found objects, bronze & iron, installation & site specific works, and a deep social practice, all centered around issues and aesthetics related to food systems, water, agriculture, reuse, connection, and being human. @casbah3d and www.casbah3.com

Nance speaks with four staffers of Chicago's independent newspaper, South Side Weekly: Editor-in-Chief Jacqui Serrato, Managing Editor Martha Bayne, Imigration Editor Alma Castillo and Politics Editor. www.southsideweekly.com

Inkmaker Thomas Little of A Rural Pen Thomas is an amateur ink historian and ink maker, based in Sampson county, NC. He makes and sells iron based pigments derived from firearms processed in his makeshift laboratory in the woods. He is currently working on other applications for his pigments, including recording sound in black magnetite ink stripes. He has taught several workshops and curated an exhibit on historic pigments and ink, and was a speaker at the first Pigments Revealed Symposium. His interests in the alchemy of images and substances informs his work. @a.rural.pen

Tao Orion is the author of Beyond the War on Invasive Species: A Permaculture Approach to Ecosystem Restoration (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2015). Tao holds a degree in agroecology and sustainable agriculture from UC Santa Cruz, She lives with her husband, two children, and an array of fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, and animals on her southern Willamette Valley smallholding, Viriditas Farm. Tao consults on holistic farm, forest, and restoration planning through her company Resilience Permaculture Design, LLC. www.resiliencepermaculture.com

Originally from Karachi, Pakistan, Tahereh Sheerazie know as ‘the plant artist’ is a garden designer, fabric artist and hiker in Pasadena, CA. Her work focuses on studying and using native plant communities and earth works to support wise water use in the increasingly drying west. http://www.theplantartist.com @the_plant_artist

Lena Welker is a metis woman of Anishinaabe descent. She and her husband run Blue Heron Outdoor School. Her herbal path began 40 years ago with her German mother in law who had grown up working with medicinal plants. She has been fortunate to have studied with many herbalists over the years in both Western and indigenous traditions. She believes that we are meant to be in balance, We are meant to be healthy. We are meant to be empowered. http://www.medicinelakeherbals.com

Jeanine Moy has devoted the last two decades to the study of natural ecosystems. Her range of experiences include managing an agroforestry research and demonstration site in upstate New York, conducting plant field studies in the greater Yellowstone region, guiding rock climbing in Colorado, and teaching outdoor science to youth in Oregon. She graduated from Cornell University with a B.S. in Applied Ecology, and from Southern Oregon University with a M.S. in Environmental Education. As a naturalist, educator, creative, activist, and backcountry adventurer, Jeanine draws on a diverse background for the foundation of the Vesper Meadow Education Program. vespermeadow.org

This interview is with the 3 founding members of INGA books. INGA is a Chicago bookshop with a focus on self-published independently distributed artists' book on design, art, film, theory and more. They program events semi frequently including readings, lectures, and performances in conjunction with the shop's interests and stock. They also publish books, bookmarks and other additions. https://i-n-g-a.com/

Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle have collaborated together since 2002. They are founders of the “ecosex movement” where they aim to make the environmental movement more sexy, fun and diverse through film, art, performance and writing. They were official documenta 14 artists (2016-17) where they premiered their film, “Water Makes Us Wet”, had a visual art exhibit, and performed several Ecosex Walking Tours. They were named 2019 Eureka Fellows. Their book, “Assuming the Ecosexual Position: Earth as Lover” will be available in July 2021 from the University of Minnesota Press. This is the *uncut and uncensored* interview - contains some profanity. spinklestephens.ucsc.edu

Carter O'Brien is the sustainability officer at the Field Musem's Office of Strategic Science Initiatives. He works to institutionalize sustainable principles such as recycling, food operations, alternative transportation, urban agriculture, community gardening, and renewable energy. A 49 year old Chicago native, he is the vice president of the Chicago Recycling Coalition, a tree keeper, as well as an avid cyclist, musician and martial artist.

Dr. Suzanne Pierre is a scientist, educator, and social organizer dedicated to the liberation of human beings through deep understanding of and communion with the natural world. Suzanne is trained as an ecosystems ecologist and biogeochemist focused on global environmental change and critical ecological study. Through her scientific research on the global cycles of matter and energy between plants, microbes, and the non-living environment, Suzanne has begun to explore how oppression, supremacist ideologies, and extractive societies have shaped the past and present natural environment at the micro and macro scales. She investigates and promotes this novel perspective on environmental and climate change through the work of her research and social change collective, the Critical Ecology Lab. www.suzannepierre.com www.criticalecologylab.org

Michelle Matthews is a BIPOC environmentalist, artist, designer, and photographer, who was born in Iran to a Chinese/Vietnamese mother and a Black/Caucasian father, and her family was among the last ones to be airlifted from Iran during the Islamic revolution in February of 1979. Traveling back and forth between her home in Hawthorne, CA and her high school in West Los Angeles, Michelle noticed how the quality of the landscape impacts the quality of life. She has spent most of her career working as a creative at nonprofits such as the ACLU, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and Sundance Institute, host of the Sundance Film Festival. She is proud to bring her non-profit creative vision and landscape management experience together in her role as Executive Director of Arlington Garden, a free public garden in the heart of Pasadena, CA. http://www.arlingtongardenpasadena.org