Alteridades Vegetais [Vegetable Otherness] was an academic event of the FFLCH–USP Anthropology Department that occurred in November 2O22. It was a space for sharing research and practices related to plant interactions from interdisciplinary approaches less centered on humanity as a primary figure.
The event's interdisciplinarity covered the areas of anthropology, archeology, botany, ecology, architecture, design and other fields of knowledge related to the urgent discussions about the environmental and climate crisis in the world.
Plant interactions — which are based on the diversity of relationships between humans, plants and other non-human beings — inspired the graphic design conceived for the event.
The four thematic axes of Alteridades Vegetais are [1] Care and cultivation; [2] Counter-domestication and other resistances; [3] Weeds and urban monocultures; [4] Cultivated soils, subsoils and roots. The design process put these axes in perspective to identify plant and non-plant beings that inspired the vegetable-letter illustrations that, combined with a modern and joyful font, formed a lively and expressive visual identity for the event.
Alteridades Vegetais was carried out by the magazine Cadernos de Campo, the research group CEstA [Center for Amerindian Studies] and the Anthropology Department of FFLCH–USP [Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences at USP], with the support of the University of São Paulo, the Center for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra and the Eco Amazonia project.