We are very much looking forward to this friday, 25 March:
From 4 pm to 8:30 pm the hooops collective will present their first publication „Plant Magic: Poison & Remedy“ with us! Join us for a cosy release with magical drinks, a presentation by editors Astarte Posch and Lisa Pieper, and readings from the magazine with Freia Kuper, Maya Land, Nicola van Straaten & Sigourney Pilz.
4 pm: mags and drinks outside
7 pm: readings, inside (3G plus test) & outside**
** since the bookstore is quite small and can only fit 12 people with COVID-regulations, we are doing an experimental window reading, where you will be able to see and hear the reading from outside.
Healing with plants is messy, complex and astonishing.
„Plant Magic: Poison & Remedy“ is a devotion to the green things, the living beings, the magical blooming ones. In the midst of collapse, seeds are still sprouting, flowers are still blooming, mushrooms are still growing. Magic is alive.
hooops invited writers, artists, poets, illustrators, plant-and-mushroom-lovers and ecological thinkers, to share their experiences, knowledges, and stories around plant and mushroom magic. Oscillating between poison and remedy, plants and mushrooms reconcile ambivalences. They are powerful agents that are unpredictable in their existence and effects.
They hold potential for resistance, intelligence and knowledge beyond human understanding. When we look at plants and mushrooms we see hope amongst ecological grief. Every day we witness this magic of growing organisms, transformation and resilience. We are looking to them for guidance while still learning to listen to their silent, sensual ways. Often, the act of listening itself can calm our buzzing minds and raging hearts and make meaning blossom in a wordless way.
In this publication, you might encounter stories of creating relationships with plants and mushrooms, fungal intimacy, poetic love letters to plants, herbal spells, stories of becoming postcolonial mushrooms, tips for combating the disturbing presence of scorpions, an essay introducing you to psychedelic becoming and many visual contributions of more-than-human relations.
Contributors: Aimilia Efthimiou, Anais-karenin, Anı Ekin Özdemir, Avant Garden, Bastian Carstensen, Carla Di Girolamo, Coline-Lou Ramonet Bonis, Corinne Wiss, Cory Papalardo, Ella Ponizovsky Bergelson, Freia Kuper, Freya Häberlein, Indra Leonard Frings, Ko-Fan Lin, Leonie Brandner, Lucie, Feigl, Lucila Pacheco Dehne, Marta Orlando, Maya Land, Monaline Mourbat, Nicola van Straaten, Nina Berfelde, Rafa Cunha, Rahel Preisser, Sara Blosseville, Shani Leseman, Yasmine Ostendorf, Sigourney Pilz, Totholz 5d, Xrysafeniax
hooops is a community of plant and mushroom friends, founded by the duo Astarte Posch and Elisa Pieper in 2020. We aim to archive and collectively develop theoretical and practical feminist/anti-capitalist/decolonial knowledge cultures circulating around healing plants and ecologies of care. Currently, hooops is running a community library, a reading club in Berlin and is working in different formations on artistic research projects.
