Deirdre Fraser-Gudrunas

I spend most of my days in intimate relationship with plants. I am currently thinking about the common names of plants, why they acquire the names that they do, what they might be called in other languages and our relationship to history through these names. Common names are presumed to come from common people, ironically in the ages before literacy became widespread — so they would have been names that were very specific to an area. Sometimes the names seem arbitrary (they are certainly arbitrary to the plant) and other times convey information about it. I have come up with a list of imaginary common names of real plants that I know (or perhaps don’t know), in the spirit of Leo Lionni’s Parallel Botany, an absurdist field guide. I have found these new names in the process of working, out in the field touching and gathering the plants that I am familiar with. Just as Antares (the protagonist in Reto Pulfer’s piece for this instalment of Out of Focus) adapts to every environment and proliferates himself everywhere by mirroring, common weeds ask: do names allow a thing to be known, or not alone? 

Uncommon Names

Based in Southern Ontario, Canada, Deirdre Fraser-Gudrunas is the sole proprietor of Vibrant Matter, a business providing hand-foraged wild edibles to Toronto’s foremost restaurants. Her approach to food and art combines sensory plant knowledge with an emphasis on cooking as a point of access to community. Some past projects have included interactive dinners with artist collective Terrarea; a still-life garden planted with the artist Swintak for the AGO; a position as head chef at Don Blanche, an off-grid artist residency that uses wood stoves and improvised cooking locations to feed up to 80 artists at a sitting; as well as leading guided walks on discovering the micropolitics of edibility.

Her instagram is @vibrant_matter