Joanna Rajkowskas Rhizopolis (2021): A rhizomatic refugium for caring commons

Abstract

Thinking with Joanna Rajkowska's project Rhizopolis (2021), conceived as an underground habitat for species that survived a series of cataclysms, this essay reimagines the home as a collective space for communities of care, generative of accountability, co-dependencies, and co-responsibilities. The installation created from tree stumps and their roots is a futuristic scenography for a non-existent science fiction film. It invites reflection on if and how interspecies symbiotic bonds can be fostered to account for co-nutrition, co-growth and co-existence for all bodies-human, non-human and other-than-human. Within the overarching framework of ethics of care and feminist new materialist discourse foregrounding co-existence and making entanglements, the essay engages with Rhizopolis to interrogate an alternative domestic space. Does Rajkowska offer us a model for a communal transspecies refugium guided by love, care, and respect? The artist's hypothetical scenario has transformative potential, imagining a home hospitable to all bodies post Anthropocene.