Becoming Moss | Cotton embroidery floss on cotton | 2021

In Through Vegetal Being (2016), philosophers Luce Irigaray and Michael Marder argue that engaging in ‘vegetal’ activities, such as touching and smelling plants, can reignite our relationships with the more-than-human world. Through my own art writing, I have deepened my understanding of this argument by exploring the medium of embroidery as a tactile and reflective method of inquiry—a practice of exploration embedded in time, feeling, sensation, posture, gesture, artistic expression, and a yearning for kinship. Embroidery, I discovered, provided me with the necessary care, material intimacy, and a more deliberate pace to immerse myself in the materiality and temporality of mosses.