Gewortelde geschiedenissen. Planten in hedendaagse kunstpraktijken als anarchieven van gemarginaliseerde kennis.

This research examines the roles of plants within contemporary art practices. Historically, in the Western art canon, vegetation has been relegated to a secondary position—depicted as decorative background or symbolic motif rather than acknowledged as living entities with ontological significance. Recent developments in art and theory have prompted what scholars term the "plant turn," a shift that foregrounds vegetal agency and nonhuman modes of existence. While much plant-oriented art speculates on future ecologies, this study focuses on works that engage vegetation as entities holding historical knowledge and possessing narrative agency. These projects demonstrate how plant presence, distribution, and ecological characteristics convey information about past land use, human and nonhuman migrations, and political actions in which plants were implicated. Drawing on Siegfried Zielinski's concept of the anarchives, the research argues that plants function as dynamic, living anarchives that challenge the authority and linearity of conventional, text-based repositories aligned with hegemonic power structures. Such vegetal anarchives enable the articulation of "grassroots histories"—multivocal narratives encompassing marginalized human and more-than-human experiences. These approaches expand methodologies beyond archaeobotany and environmental history, emphasizing plants' agency rather than reducing them to data. Collectively, the case studies underscore the epistemological potential of plants in reframing historical narratives and advocate for methodologies that integrate ecological, artistic, and political dimensions. Attending to vegetal agency not only broadens art historical discourse but also contributes to wider debates on environmental ethics and multispecies historiography.