SOFIE ISAGER AHL
Laboratory for Aesthetics and Ecology
1. ed. 2018, 2. ed. 2020
A companion plant is a plant that carries something, a substance or particular property, that can be either harmful or beneficial to other plant species. Through hundreds of years human beings have been attentive to the peculiarities of the interrelationships between species, when they were cultivating the land. We meet rose hips, stinging nettles, flies, earthworms and winegrowers on a journey into the expansiveness of the senses and the biology of language. Companion Plants is a story about how plants and humans influence each other and about the difficult art of cultivating connections across species and families.
"Companion Plants is driven by an interest in nature, that is at once romantic in the sense that it is sensitive and in search of beauty, but at the same time it's also scientific: How does eco-systems work? What is it that earthworms actually do in a vineyard?"
"She brings forth a mode of experience in her writing, that is almost subject-erasing, and can be reminiscent of the ecstasies of mysticism. It's as if the words comes from inside photosynthesis."
– Norwegian poet Espen Stueland, Deichmann Podcast
The book has been translated into Norwegian by Norwegian poet Tora Sanden Døskeland and published at Forlaget H//O//F in 2021. It can be bought here.
SHORTER LITERARY
2020. Stinging Nettles. Bloom Explore
2020. Agriculture. Connectedness. Strandberg Publishing
2019. The Almost Nameless. Aiolos: Tidsskrift för litteratur och estetik, nr. 62-63
2018. The Birds. Naturens sprog. Eksistensen
2017. From the Fields. Forfatternes Klimaaksjon
sofieisagerahl (at) gmail.com