Plants are essential for human existence, giving us air, food and shelter. For many cultures, they are also at the core of cultural and spiritual practice.
Providing protection, supporting resilience and expanding our minds to connect with other worlds.
Dr. Maggie Buxton is researching plants for the BioSignals project from spiritual, scientific and creative perspectives. She has collaborated with Kim Newall to co-create a resilience garden on her one-acre property.
This is the first post in a series about Maggie’s research into magical and medicinal plants and her journey to understand their power and signals.
Protection from Evil
Plants have been used for medicinal and spiritual purposes across various cultures. In belief systems where intangible entities cause physical and mental ailments, plants have offered protection.
They emit signals that can repel or attract desired outcomes owing to their magical properties.
In addition, certain plants can act as gateways to other dimensions, enabling us to explore different realms and break free from the mundane.
Plants and Practice
Maggie has a deep connection with plants and has been using them as part of her ritual practice to connect with the unseen. Her work with BioSignals involves exploring plant signals that protect and strengthen, as well as how we connect with the plant world beyond IoT.
This includes delving into memories, meditation, ritual, and creativity.
Maggie has always been passionate about cultivating and propagating herbs, which she uses in her spiritual practice.
In her creative practice, she has a long-standing craft of drying plants and using them to make inks for dying.
More recently, she has also started enveloping plants in bioplastics and resin, which she then photographs and exhibits.
Together with Kim, she has also created interactive installations using plants, projecting them at scale and generating them with Kim’s algorithms.
Plants at St Mary’s Place
One of the first projects for BioSignals is to create a resilience garden. The site, next to their main vegetable patch, was used by previous owners as a chicken run.
Since Maggie and Kim have owned the house (located at St Marys Place), it has been a vegetable garden mainly for tomatoes and chillis, which seem to thrive there. It is now being converted into a garden dedicated to creative practice.
Maggie is already propagating plants associated with resilience and protection in her garden and getting ready to plant them in the new site (before the season changes in earnest in April). Addition plants are also being sourced from local growers to add to the garden.
Adapting, Thriving or Dying
Particular herbs grow very well at St Marys Place. Particularly plants associated with this deity: Marigolds and Rosemary. But also herbs suited to Northland’s subtropical/temperate climate (where it never frosts).
With climate change, Northland is expected to have more extreme weather, generally warmer and more humid. This brings storms, floods as well as droughts. Many plants adapt to this environment, particularly herbs, which are hardy and bred for NZ conditions.
Some will adapt so much that they become pest plants that damage native flora. Some research will be dedicated to this area in the future. Which plants will adapt, which will thrive and which will suffer? Details on how the garden progresses will be posted in this blog.
More BioSignals
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BioSignals: Printing Mugwort
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Interview with Kieran Monaghan
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BioSignals: Plant Ethics and Msc Presentations
in July/August the New Zealand bioSignals research team has been sharing research and perspectives in short presentations to stimulate thinking and enrich cross-cultural exchange. Presentations in PDF and Video below. {{ vc_btn:…
BioSignals First NZ Milestone Achieved
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Ecosystem Signals Crossing the World
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BioSignals: Interview with Kelly Kahukiwa
Kelly Kahukiwa (Ngāti IO, Ngāti Whakaue, Ngai Tūhoe and Te Aitanga -ā Māhaki) is an artist, musician, intercultural leader and indigenous researcher. Kelly’s artistic practice spans many contemporary and traditional forms, including…
Resilience Garden Update: Image Gallery
A BioSignals documentation post is showing the latest growth in our resilience garden. We have beautiful flowers in our resilience garden and massive autumnal growth. The mugwort seedlings are thriving, and abundance…
Installation Prototyping
Plants are sending signals within a suburban mall thanks to Kim's hard work today on our bioSignals project. Our shop in The Strand Arcade now has the bones of an installation in…
Foraging and Propagating Wormwood
It shows you the folly of resentment, judgement and rage. Gregg (2014) Artemisia Absyinthium, is a repellent herb that hatefully banishes other plants or animals that come too close. Cunningham (1998)…
The Magic of Mugwort
Mugwort - a powerful medicinal plant is now in our garden! Mugwort, scientifically known as Artemisia vulgaris, is a versatile and aromatic herb cherished for centuries for its medicinal, magical and culinary…
Capturing Hitchhikers: Image Gallery
A BioSignals documentation post for an expedition to AH Reed Public Park 24 Feb 24 Yesterday, we visited AH Reed Park as an expedition a new AwhiWorld project and to support…
Sansar VR Experiments 2
BioSignals research has led to live visualisation of data in VR. Daniël Vandersmissen, our colleague in Belgium, has been working with Sansar. As a result of his latest experiment, Kim's live…
Hardware Experiments – Outside Sensors
A second prototype IoT system is now set-up outside in our resilience garden. Kim set this system up for our BioSignals project using the same hardware and sensor configuration as our…
Hardware Experiments
Our colleague Frederico D.A. de Sena Pereira (from the SEADs network) is working with our NZ team to research various means for connecting to and receiving plant signals. Humans can…
Sansar VR Experiments
BioSignals research includes signal transfer in and out of virtual worlds. Daniël Vandersmissen, our colleague in Belgium, is experimenting with the Sansar Virtual World. Sansar is a virtual reality platform that…
Capturing Weeds: Image Gallery
Documentation post for weeds collected around our property for the BioSignals project. {{ vc_btn: title=Learn+More+About+BioSignals&shape=square&color=success&size=lg&align=center&link=url%3Ahttps%253A%252F%252Fawhiworld.com%252Fportfolio%252Fbiosignals%252F%7Ctarget%3A_blank }} More BioSignals The British Council funds BioSignals via the #ConnectionsThroughCulture programme.
Pathways to Resilience
BioSignals continues ... our resilience garden is coming along nicely. We've been out in the garden, preparing pathways, mulching and planting in and around our Resilience Garden (formerly The Chicken Garden). …
BioSignals: Interview with Cr Jack Craw
Cr Jack Craw is a seasoned biosecurity and biodiversity management expert with a career spanning over forty years. Currently serving as a Regional Councillor for the Northland Regional Council, Jack brings extensive…
BioPlastic Experiments
BioSignals and bioplastics - experiments with resilient and highly noxious weeds. Stopping the Moth Plant (Araujia hortorum) in its tracks is many a conservationist's dream. In NZ, the plant is disturbingly known…
Binding the Binders
Strangling, smothering and suffocating - disturbing traits that make certain plants extremely resilient. But how do we capture this resilience artistically and magically? In this post, Maggie shares her experiments for BioSignals…
Weeding for BioSignals
We are getting into the weeds for our research for BioSignals. Taking advantage of the long weekend for Waitangi Day, Kim and I have been working hard on our garden, plant…
Climate Change, Biodiversity and IoT
BioSignals explores climate change and biodiversity using IoT systems to generate and send signals from plants. Climate change is causing extreme weather events to increase, altering rainfall patterns, raising temperatures, and warming…
Proof of Concept – BioSignals
BioSignals has begun! Kim has set up a prototype IoT-based biosignal system using the Aloe Vera plant in our studio space. The system configuration is: ESP32 microcontroller Sensors: DHT11 (temperature and humidity), Light-dependent…
Peering at Plants
Microscopy is a core part of AwhiWorld's practice whether it be a live performance or teaching people about the unseen world of plants in our innovation labs. A core part of Maggie's…
FAQ
Herbs that are often associated with magical protection depicted in the images in this post include White Sage (Salvia apiana), Common Sage (Salvia officinalis), Thyme (Thymus vulgaris), Oregano (Origanum vulgare), Rue (Ruta graveolens), Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis), Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis) and Bay Laurel (Laurus nobilis). Lemon Balm in particular is best described as a weed on the property that we weed wack regularly.
AwhiWorld is in Onerahi, Whangārei in Northland (Te Tai Tokerau) Northland, NZ. The area is coastal, with a large mangrove-filled marine reserve within walking distance and a number of beaches. Our property sits in a small valley with a stream at the bottom and mostly clay soil.
Whangārei is a sub-tropical climate with temperatures ranging between 22°C to 30°C+ in summer, and in winter, daytime temperatures usually range between 12°C to 17°C. There are no frosts or snow in this region, and an annual rainfall of around 1,500mm – often higher. Whangarei is increasingly prone to extreme weather with droughts and flooding happening regularly. In the last two years, we have had 8 extreme weather events, including a massive cyclone.
The British Council funds BioSignals via the #ConnectionsThroughCulture programme.