Ellie Kyungran Heo: "Whoosh to Wish"

Figure 1. Field Research in North Acton Playing Fields, London, ©Ellie Kyungran Heo
Figure 1. Field Research in North Acton Playing Fields, London, ©Ellie Kyungran Heo

How do we treat dandelions? How should we judge people who treat dandelions as inferior to lawns and other living beings?
How might the plants think of themselves and their place in this world? In what ways can art expose and examine human perceptions of dandelions? How can artistic intervention promote human attention to dandelions and create a space for discussing the way we engage with the life of the plant?

Exploring these questions in my project Whoosh to Wish, with the support of the IfCAR grant, meant making journeys to various locations, including the United Kingdom, where dandelion herbicide is produced and commonly used by gardeners. I also journeyed to Switzerland, where the concept of “the dignity of plants” has been established by Constitutional Law, as well as France, where there is a fascination with producing perfumes using over four thousand species of plants, and South Korea, where a plant hospital has recently launched. Furthermore, I reached out to sensory experts, conducting experiments through their expertise, to investigate how we can approach and perceive dandelions.

“Use on leafy weeds April – September when they are small and actively growing. For best results do not mow for 3 days before or after treatment. Avoid spraying in drought or frost. To avoid drift, do not spray in windy conditions. New lawns, treat in the spring at least 2 months after sowing or laying turf. The new lawn must be growing well. [...] Hold sprayer at arm’s length with nozzle pointing towards the weeds and ensure spray covers all weed leaves. [...] KEEP OFF SKIN. WASH OFF SPLADHES (IMMEDIATELY). DO NOT BREATHE SPRAY. WASH HANDS AND EXPOSED SKIN AFTER USE. [...] KEEP PRODUCT AWAY FROM CHILDREN AND PETS. KEEP AWAY FROM FOOD, DRINK AND ANIMAL FEEDING STUFFS.” - experts from the instructions of Weedol Gun, LAWN WEEDKILLER (Figure 1)

How do we treat dandelions?

What makes people treat dandelions as inferior to lawns and other living beings?

How might the plants think of themselves and their place in this world?

In what ways can art expose and examine human perceptions of dandelions?

How can artistic intervention promote human attention to dandelions and create a space for discussing the way we engage with the life of the plant?

Exploring these questions in my project, Whoosh to Wish, with the support of the IfCAR grant, meant making journeys to various locations, including the United Kingdom, where dandelion herbicide is produced and commonly used by gardeners. I also journeyed to Switzerland, where the concept of “the dignity of plants” has been established by Constitutional Law, as well as France, where there is a fascination with producing perfumes using over four thousand species of plants, and South Korea, where a plant hospital has recently launched. Furthermore, I reached out to sensory experts, conducting experiments through their expertise, to investigate how we can approach and perceive dandelions.

My journey began with the question, “What is the life of a dandelion growing on human playgrounds and being treated as a weed?” To answer this question, from March to April 2024, mostly for two days a week, I aimed my camera and microphone towards dandelions growing on the North Acton Playing Fields in London, near where I lived at the time (Figure 2). I began by capturing how dandelions grow, their structure, and the sounds and images of the surrounding environment. As well as dandelions, I encountered other diverse elements and living species – the wind, birds, bees, flies, dogs biting my microphone, and people who asked, “What are you doing here?”, “Are you photographing or filming?”, “Which one?”, and “For what?” I asked them: “What do you think I am doing here?” (Figure 3), and received some interesting replies – “Are you filming a tree or children playing football?”, “What? Dandelions? Why do you use such an expensive camera to film such common plants?”, Why don’t you focus on that ancient oak tree?”, “Why are you using a microphone?”, “Are dandelions talking to you?”, as well as statements such as “They are weeds, ugly!”.

Through this fieldwork, I captured various perspectives, such as animal-first views, which prioritised animals while treating dandelions as inferior or neglecting to recognise their existence, and other views, where people talked to me about their childhood memories or cultural bonds with dandelions. This field study inspired me to explore artistic possibilities for capturing people’s attention and engaging them in more open discourse. By creating a stage for encounters between human beings and other creatures, I aim to spark people’s curiosity and reflection on the life of dandelions.

Meanwhile, I bumped into someone removing dandelions and mowing fields and gardens in London. This led me to another question: “What would be the life of a dandelion growing in a place where the Swiss plant policy, the dignity of plants, applies?”

While conducting field research in Zurich and Grindelwald in Switzerland for a week in May 2024, I came across a gardener in Zurich, Safet Qusaj, who mowed only the outside of the garden lawn, leaving the centre untouched and wild and the dandelions to grow high (Figures 4). This looked different to the UK general mowing style. Qusaj said, “We leave some parts of the field as itself, not cutting mostly the centre part of the garden so that diverse plant species can thrive in it”. My question here is: “Can this be a negotiable point between plants and people – to consider the dignity of both?”

In Grindelwald, lots of tourists were enjoying the Swiss mountains and nature. There was a fence and an interesting warning sign to protect the wild fields (Figure 5), where I came across a little girl who tickled a dandelion flower. She sat on the ground and moved her head to the fluffy dandelion clock (seed head) and softly “whooshed” (blew) at it (Figure 6). This triggered me to think about the ways we blow away and wish upon dandelion seeds. It was common to see people, especially children, pick the stem of a dandelion and blow the clock while wishing. But this girl was the first person I found who moved her head towards the dandelion clock and blew the seeds away without damaging the plant’s stem. This led me to another question. I wondered: “Why is it that we wish for something through this plant species? Who will make the wishes come true?”

While in Grasse in France, I asked myself two more questions: “Would it be possible to find a perfume made from dandelions? What do perfumers who study thousands of different plant species think about dandelions?” I conducted field research in Grasse for a week in June 2024 to meet the French perfume research community, which is listed as UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) Intangible Cultural Heritage. First, I attended a perfume-making workshop at Fragonard, one of the oldest perfumeries in Grasse (Figure 7). While there, I experienced the ways of smelling, perceived nine plant-based extracts, and mixed them to make a scent. The workshop leader and perfumer Diane Saurat Rognoni asked the participants to describe what kinds of colours, feelings and tastes came up on smelling each extract, which enabled me to learn how to “detect” plants through my imagination. One of the most inspiring instructions from Rognoni was that when our nose gets tired of sensing a smell, through being overwhelmed by the surrounding scent, we need to put our nose to our body and smell our own scent. Then, our sense of smell can return to recognising other materials better. Perfumers who work with many ingredients use this process, which inspired me to approach my subject in a particular way: SENSE MYSELF FIRST TO SENSE OTHERS.

Next, I visited 11 perfume shops, asking myself and others: “Is there a perfume made from dandelions?”, “Do you know the smell of dandelions, and have you tried using it in your perfume?”, and “What do you think about the smell?” Most people laughed at me when I asked these questions and gave me interesting replies such as “It’s not a flower you can smell”, “Why do you want to know this?”, “People like having an exceptional perfume product, so common plants like dandelions, you wouldn’t want”, and “There are so many raw materials we have to work with, about 4000 raw materials, pissenlit [dandelions in French],… not yet, but it’s interesting”. I collected all the voices and found two perfumers who were interested in my project and willing to investigate the scent of dandelions or create a space where we could get a sense of their smell.

In South Korea, I visited a plant hospital run by Goyang Special City Agriculture Technology Center as a public service, which had launched in September 2024. I contacted and met with plant hospital doctors Hee-Kyung Yang and Ji-Seop Kim, who established the plant hospital to raise awareness of companion plants, accompanied by a potted dandelion, which I asked them to diagnose. Dr Yang carefully looked at the whole body of the dandelion, even revealing the roots to check their health and condition and then re-potting the plant. Using a magnifying glass and microscope, she pointed out various issues with the leaves (Figure 8), saying:

“This is the trail of the worms, the so-called leaf miners. If we leave them alive, the leaves will eventually die. I am going to spray COY (cooking oil and yolk mixture) on this plant, which is very effective against pests on the underside of leaves. There are no pesticides in it for you to be worried about. The water and oil will block the breath of pests and suffocate them, so you don’t have to worry too much”.

After giving this treatment, she gave me a prescription and medication. Interestingly, the format of the prescription package was similar to that for humans, which was the doctor’s intention – to treat plants at the same level as humans. She also remarked, “People have dogs or other animals and give them names, but why don’t we name plants?” I asked her to make a name for the dandelion plant and she chose “Bion”, which means “rainy” in Korean. She explained: “I made it because you came here on a rainy day, and I suddenly felt that the sound of rain was very nice”.

It was fascinating to observe how the plant doctors treated dandelions in a manner comparable to how human doctors treat people and how veterinarians treat animals. However, I also realised that my attempt to study and save a potted plant inadvertently harmed the insects living on it due to the chemicals the plant doctors used. I had to acknowledge this as a conflict, which was very painful for me. I realised that intervening in the life of one living thing for a specific purpose can be dangerous to other living things – bugs, plants, our neighbours, the ecosystem, or even ourselves! Through reflecting on this field study, I have become more aware of the connections between my subject plant (the dandelion) and other creatures. To ensure my reflection is meaningful and to apologise to any insects affected by my project, in addressing the conflicts I highlight in this project, I feel compelled to mark this experience of “saving” the dandelion as a crucial mistake. Additionally, when I shared this project with the plant doctors and discussed how gardeners often treat this plant species as a weed, Dr Kim mentioned that a plant hospital is a place for people who want to save their plants, whereas, outside the hospital, some gardeners try to kill plants they do not want. He said: "Such conflict between the two perspectives; but, actually, there’s no conflict because those two groups never bump into each other”. I wondered what might happen if these opposite groups came together for a debate and how art can create a space for debate from an unbiased position, creating impartial spectators.

As part of my project, I participated in several Mentoring Meetings:

- Lucy T Smith (botanical illustrator at Kew Gardens in London, UK). Smith told me, “When botanists publish a new plant species, a scientific botanical illustration is essential to convey delicate details that cannot be explained in botanical words.” I wondered whether this means that those who cannot see the plant illustration, such as people with sight loss, may find it difficult to understand the structure and characteristics of the plant. What if botanical illustrators can verbalise the delicate structure of a plant in their drawings, illuminating the details that botanists cannot describe with their scientific words? I invited Smith to explore linguistic ways of describing the structure of the dandelion and audio-recorded her describing what details she saw while drawing (Figure 9).

- James Cyril Towersey (gardening leader for the visually impaired at Galloways in Preston, UK). Towersey guided me to Galloway’s garden – which is run by people with sight loss and volunteers – and introduced me to one of the gardening members, Bob Millus, who was 92, visually impaired and had excellent gardening skills. Millus demonstrated to me how he recognised dandelions. But it turned out that he pulled them out as weeds (Figure 10), which was different from my expectations of learning how to recognise and touch the plants sensibly. Nevertheless, while visiting the Galloways gardening team, I found this community has strengthened its solidarity through its gardening activities. These community characteristics and facilities can enable me to experiment with cross-sensory installation of the dandelion both indoors and outdoors, where plants live – going beyond taking a visual approach – to collect diverse feedback on my work, engaging with those who have different sensory abilities and cultural practices, tracing some potential long-term changes through continuous research exchanges with the community. Moreover, the Galloways gardening team and other members showed interest in and welcomed my project. They aspired to expand their artistic activities, and my research can contribute to this vision. Thus, I am keen to present my research outcomes to them next year.

- Ju Hyun Lee (artist and chef at ADDSEA in Besançon, France). ADDSEA (Association Départementale du Doubs de Sauvegarde de l’Enfant à l’Adulte) is a social organisation founded in 1956 that focuses on social support, child protection, housing assistance and integration programmes for vulnerable individuals and their families. I asked Lee to create a new recipe for using dandelions as essential food ingredients and examine the possibility of shifting human perception of the dandelion from a common weed to a companion plant. Lee made dandelion gimbap (Korean-style rice rolls), jellies and drinks (Figure 11) at a cooking workshop for myself and other participants. In French food culture, making a salad with dandelion leaves was common before the 1970s; but this is seemingly less common today, as none of the participants had experienced eating them before the workshop. The cooking experience was enjoyable, and sharing the food made the group of people open to sharing their memories and thoughts about dandelions. But in the end, I regretted that I accepted Lee’s suggestion to eat the plant’s roots. In my philosophy, eating a plant’s roots is better than wasting or killing the plant as a weed. However, I decided to uphold my project’s policy of carefully engaging with plants’ lives – that is, I do not root out or pick plants unless I need to eat. Thus, I will embrace the challenge of perceiving the dandelion roots through my own and others’ imagination, which could open up spaces to engage with plant life beyond what we can immediately see.

- Marcus Maeder (acoustic ecology researcher and composer based in Zurich, Switzerland). I had a one-hour Zoom meeting with Maeder, asking the question: “Is it possible to record some sounds from inside the dandelions?” His answer was “No, it is not possible to record a small plant, but we can record the plant’s surrounding sounds”. I thought it would be interesting to conduct an observational study on how he makes music about dandelions and analyse its outcome.

- Orietta Gianjorio (sensory evaluation expert and sommelier specialising in olive oil, honey and chocolate based in Rome, Italy). I asked Gianjorio’s advice on what characteristics of dandelions can be experienced through the senses, especially the parts of the dandelion above the root: the petals, stigma, bracts, pappus (hairs and cone), stem and leaf. At my request, she investigated the appearance, aroma, taste, flavour and texture of each part of the dandelion and gave me some valuable reports: Dandelion Sensory Evaluation and Descriptive Analysis, Aromas Spider, Gustative Persistency, and Taste Web Comparison (Figure 12). Gianjorio remarked to me: “You must have been the first client in the world who asked to research dandelions”. I think her study is the first to analyse dandelions through sensory evaluation; her research has deepened my understanding of the plant’s intrinsic characteristics in a way that goes beyond scientific knowledge and has given me new linguistic materials on which to perceive dandelions differently. For instance, the dandelion puff was described with a range of sensory terms: the colour varies from water white to yellow-white; the smell is reminiscent of jasmine, orange zest, tea leaves and dry wood; against the mouth, it tastes and feels soft like cotton candy, and is fluffy, bristly, feathery, spherical and gritty; and it sounds like fuzzy aspirin in water (a very soft sound, almost imperceptible). Furthermore, in collaboration with Gianjorio, this experiment triggered me to write different guidelines on how to deepen our approach to and experience dandelions, which can be applied to my film scripts, performance scenarios and public engagement workshops.

With the IfCAR grant, I explored the potential to uncover varying human perceptions of plants through field study, specifically recorded voices and witnessed images, as well as the possibilities to create a stage in the field and within the research process that could enhance people’s attention and stimulate discussions about the life of dandelions. I have also initiated the next research phase, collaborating with sensory evaluation experts to develop the stage further. Now, as I lean down and gently approach the dandelion clock, I imagine taking a deep breath and doing Whoosh to Wish that my PhD project could propose more advanced artistic strategies that could trigger reflection and reconstruction of relationships regarding how we engage with plant life.

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Whoosh to Wish is part of my PhD project, It’s Not Easy Bein’ Green: An Artistic Exploration of Human Perceptions of Plants, which investigates how plants have shaped human cultures in parallel with how people have shaped plant life. This project aims to propose an integrated discourse on the issue of human perception neglecting plants compared to other living beings.

Link: https://www.zhdk.ch/en/phdproject/it-s-not-easy-bein-green-599131