Indexed Beings - film screening and discussion

What happens when plants are no longer treated as specimens, but as sentient beings capable of knowing, acting, and creating their own worlds. How might this transform the production of scientific knowledge?

is the second in a trilogy of artist films by Helen Knowles, developed through her practice-based PhD at Northumbria University. Filmed in Mocoa, Putumayo, Colombia, the work was made in partnership with members of the indigenous Kamëntsá, Inga, Cofan and Siona communities and the Herbario Etnobotánico del Piedemonte.

The 42-minute film centres on the re-enactment of a dispute that took place in the Herbarium of Piedemonte, Mocoa, in the Colombian Amazon, between a scientist and a local taita (shaman) over the role of the herbarium. For the scientist, it is a vital tool to defend territory from exploitation and protect its biodiversity; for the taita, plants are autonomous, intelligent beings that cannot be catalogued. Through performance, collaboration and dialogue, Indexed Beings explores plant sentience and asks how knowledge shifts when we recognise more-than-human intelligence, asking whose knowledge really counts?

The screening will be followed by a conversation with artist, Helen Knowles and collaborator and participant in the film Soraida Chindoy Buesaquillo, an indigenous guardian, mother and activist who is working to defend the sacred Putumayo mountains.

This screening is hosted as part of our Making Just Futures programme. The film makers would like to acknowledge their sponser; the Bernina Foundation.

Soraida Chindoy is an indigenous guardian, mother and activist who is working to defend the sacred Putumayo mountains. The territory is also home to 56 lagoons considered sacred by the Indigenous people and represents the meeting point between the Amazon rainforest and the Andes. This area is currently endangered by the establishment of a copper mine.

Helen Knowles (b. 1975) - is an artist working with expanded forms of moving image. Her practice examines the intersection of immateriality and life, focusing on responsibility, autonomy, and ethics in relation to technology, AI, and the non or more-than-human. Knowles explores the digital world through a planetary lens. Working collaboratively with indigenous communities, medics, scientists, lawyers, crypto specialists, midwives, childbirth professionals and inmates. Her use of performance and film focuses on the relational and generative qualities of discourse.

Credits for Visual Images: Indexed Beings by Helen Knowles. An artist film made in collaboration with Jorge Contreras, Manuel Mueses and Soraida Chindoy and members of the Inga, Cofán, Siona and Kamëntsá communities of Mocoa, Putumayo. Film still, 42 minute video, (2025).

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