Three Becomes Two Becomes One Becomes None - cosmopiesis of mandragoras

The mandragora plant is one of the best-recorded gynaecological herbal substances. It is also the only plant in the European context historically depicted as a half-human-half-plant-creature. The mandragora was, is and continues to be haunted by stories. Could its many stories hold a key to lure our minds off paths well-trodden? What if the mandragora holds the potential for new orders and for world-making; for a cosmopoiesis of mandragoras.

Three Becomes Two Becomes One Becomes None explores the medicinal and magical mandragora plant, and the many stories that grew around it across history. My writing moves from the beginning of recorded storytelling to ancient Egyptian and Greek mythology, tracing the lines the mandragora has left behind in medicinal books, folklore and eventually the impact the plant had in the hunt on so-called witches in the Middle Ages. Gently weaving my own perception and encounters with the plant through my historical research, I create a kaleidoscopic image of human-plant-imaginations across time.

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Book launches:

October 10th, 2024, Zabriskie Buchladen, Berlin, DE

October 24th, 2024, Page not Found, Den Haag, NL

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2024

Type: Softcover
Dimensions: 150 x 200 mm
Pages: 196
ISBN: 978-94-93382-06-0
Language: English


Editor: Marjolein van der Loo
Author: Leonie Brandner
Graphic: Elisa Piazzi
Artist: Leonie Brandner
Printer: Wilco, Amersfoort
Publisher: Onomatopee project
manager: Jesse Muller, Natasha Rijkhoff
Proofreader: Georgie Brinkman
 

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Supported by:

Jaap Harten Fonds, Stroom Den Haag, Gemeente Den Haag, Godi Hertig Foundation

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Can be purchased:
Onomatopee Projects​

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The contemporary reinterpretation of the mandrake material took on the form of a 35 minute sung performance for 50 singers called 'If Only'.

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