This paper explores monsoons as a set of atmospheric-orographic dynamics productive of water resources and as a site of actionable concern for landscape practice. From study to representation to design, the term "landscape practice" is used to describe a way of positioning environments as both subject and object of concern. While monsoons are constituents of many geographies, dynamics, materials and experiences, this paper focuses on the South Asian monsoon and its relationship with the Tibetan Plateau. In this region, freshwater resources are dependent on the monsoon; however, as rising global temperatures and rapid urban development significantly impact the behavior of the monsoon and the Plateau's ability to store freshwater, the monsoon-as a kinetic body of freshwater-becomes the focal point of visual media productions and extractive technologies that require a shifting of perspective from one that privileges land to one that centers the atmosphere. The inclusion of meteorological and atmospheric material and dynamics within the space of landscape practice, constructively challenges the spatial discipline's engagement with exploitable resources; and the monsoon provides a tangible site and set of conditions that is in urgent need of this exploration.
How do we understand more-than-human vegetal emergence in/with/under monsoonal transformation. I often like to introduce the monsoon to people by telling them that it is the change in the direction of the wind that carries the ocean to the sky, blanketing the geological spatio-temporality of the Indian subcontinent, transforming its air and everything in its temporal wake with the possibility of life. This paper thinks through the invasive vilayati kikar which has overwhelmed native monsoon forests and arid ecologies. Drawing from fieldwork in the Delhi region conducted during monsoon 2018, 2019 and the winter of 2018, and by thinking with literature and reports from ecology, biology, politics, anthropology and natural science-I attempt a brief situated narrative that explores the vegetal emergence of the plant, its natureculture spirits and embodiment in/with the monsoon-finally, closing this work with an argument and discussion on the monsoon and its ontological stickiness.