Plants Can Dance - 19th April
Plants Can Dance is back at our residential home, Hideout, in Hackney Wick, East London - 19th April.
We had a great one last month with the launch of Sunflowers (less than ten copies left if you’d like to grab one), with special guests Li Yilei and Luca. The event was curated as more of a concert/traditional gig than previous events, with no workshop and minimal talking with a focus on deep listening and that format worked well. Thanks to everyone who came and respected the environment we created :)
For our next event, we flip it back to the previous format, meaning it will be much more interactive! We’ll begin with a biosonification workshop, hosted by myself and Lamine from Repot (who’s back from his travels after missing the last one). We’ll fill the space with plants from his Repot plant shop and plug a range of biosonification devices into them to hear what sounds can be made. A biophilliacs wet dream…
We’ve partnered with Instruo and Modern Biology for this, so have plenty of Pocket Scions for you to play with.
We’ve also invited back Pierre Paslier (who runs the amazing non-plastic seaweed packaging business NotPla) who’ll be demonstrating his biosonification tape-loop experiments with his reel-to-reel machine and other experimental approaches to making music from nature.
We’ll then have two guest speakers - Sophia Shnapp, Music and sustainability advocate, who works with EarthPercent to highlight how the creative sector can play a meaningful role in driving environmental action and long-term change. Sophia has just delivered a TEDx talk in their Ibiza Summit, talking about the connection between Nature and Music and we’ll have an opportunity to hear that TED talk and then discuss it…
NATURE is an artist. And millions are already listening.
In a world searching for new ways to live in balance, music is quietly leading a shift, helping to retune how we value the living planet, and offering a blueprint for systems rooted in harmony.
In her recent TEDx talk, Sophia Shnapp shares a journey from global climate institutions to the cultural frontier: where music, storytelling, and collective experience are shaping a new relationship between people and planet.
At the heart of the talk:
@soundsright.earth — an initiative recognising Nature as an artist, with royalties flowing back to protect and restore ecosystems, developed with @museumfortheun
@earthpercent — founded by Brian Eno, mobilising the music industry for climate action
When culture shifts, policy follows.
A State Of Flo has been supporting Earth Percent since we started, so it’s fantastic to hear from Sophia and share the work it has been doing.
Our second guest speaker is Paul JJ Treichl is an Austrian designer, architect, and artist who works with living organisms. He explores the intersection between the built and natural environments and the living organisms that comprise them. His research and work touch on speculative futures and multi-species design through the lenses of education. His recent paper "The biota as pedagogy" proposes an approach to the education system that places local living organisms, ecosystems, and ecological relationships at the core of curriculum, rather than treating them as separate subjects.
Paul recently launched Feral Worlding a publication platform for those working across and beyond biodesign - practitioners, academics, independent researchers, students, artists, DIY experimenters, and the curious. A biannual, print-only magazine which engages in the critical conversations of those who are shaping the future of living systems with care, ethics, and creativity. FW was created to bridge the fragmented, often disconnected worlds of academic research, grassroots experimentation, speculative design, and collective inquiry.
We’ll be hearing from Paul about all these projects and will have some copies of Feral Worlding for you to check out too.
In amongst all that, we’ll also have time to listen to plant music from Lamine and my duel Modular Synth and Instruo Scion set ups - a perfect way to detach and wind down the weekend!
Rough timings
4pm-530pm - Biosonification Workshops with Brian, Lamine and Pierre
530-615pm - Paul JJ Treichl / Feral Worlding
645-730pm - Sophia Shnapp (TEDx talk + Q&A)
730pm - close Brian d’Souza and Lamine’s Plants Can Dance
Tickets on sale next week :)
Support A State Of Flo!
Supporters of A State Of Flo can listen back to the recording from the last Plants Can Dance 22nd Feb - the link is after the paywall below. Your support is most welcome - 10% goes to EarthPercent and the rest goes to supporting the release of new music on this platform. Supporters receive all music released on the label as a download, exclusive mixes and other content, some free vinyl and an Ambient Flo ‘zine.
