PEOPLE’S PLANT MUSEUM
People’s Plant Museum (PPM) celebrates the relationships between plants and people. The Museum was established by artist Emma Duehr as a living collection of plants, a public archive of plant stories, and a resource for plant exchange and care. Our programs initiate conversations that support and examine the cohabitation of humans and the plants they cultivate.
PPM is an arts institution, unique for opening a museum inside of a house, tending to a living collection of plants, and maintaining an evolving relational archive. The living plants are exhibited in a 765 sq ft residential building in Southeast Portland, Oregon. All of the collected plants have been exchanged by people through methods of propagation, trade, and donation. The plants are accompanied by a digital archive of interviews and stories about the care and exchanges that have sustained the plants’ lives. The growing collection of plants exhibits the rich legacy of the impact plants and humans have on each other, and provides a context for continued collecting, tending, and sharing the histories of the plants people have exchanged.
Our departments include curating, collecting, exhibiting, studying, and preserving plants with continuously evolving stories. We offer guided tours, participatory projects and events, and provide plant-related resources through the museum’s digital library. The Museum works to cultivate a community for plant and human interchange that offers methods for exchange of plants and their stories.
Our History
In 2019 People’s Plant Museum found its first home: a residential building erected in 1951, and built upon the traditional village sites of the Multnomah, Kathlamet, Clackamas, Chinook, Tualatin Kalapuya, Molalla and many other tribes who made their homes along the Columbia River. Following Emma Duehr’s home purchase, she began examining the land, the surrounding plants, and the colonized practice of collecting houseplants. The museum has since relocated.
Looking to reconnect people and plants, Emma Duehr converted her home into a museum to showcase the impact plants and humans have on each other. She examined the plants cohabiting her living space, and investigated the history embodied in each plant. Over the years she collected plants from friends, family, neighbors, social media listings, estate sales, nature cuttings, and other public spaces.
Emma began conducting home visits with people curating a collection of plant stories. She formalized The Collection at People’s Plant Museum to present themes, topics, and relationships involved in plant exchange. She curated the initial collection to establish a foundation for future conversations, stories, and contributions. PPM began hosting projects and events, and sharing plant resources to encourage further development between plants and people.
Guest curators and artists are encouraged to facilitate open calls and projects for participation. The museum aspires to exhibit The Collection in various domestic and public settings. PPM responds to the themes, topics, and stories continuously explored by the people. Project offshoots will hopefully emerge as the project continues to grow and expand in tandem with people sharing plant stories. PPM is continuously evolving.
Letter from our Curator
“My cousins, Kym and Chad, always had a giant cactus in their living room in 2015, the cactus grew up to the ceiling and required trimming. They asked our family if anyone would like a cutting and my dad and I both received our own piece of the cactus that day. This was the first time I learned about plant propagation and the ability to multiple specimens of the same plant. I immediately wondered: where did they get the plant?
I grew up in a small, midwest town on the Mississippi River, and for four generations, nearly all of my extended family have claimed Dubuque, Iowa “home.” Upon receiving my BFA in 2017, my husband and I said goodbye to our families and moved to Portland, Oregon. During this chapter of my life I focused on artistic and personalized practices, both aimed at bridging the physical distance between friends and family. I began exploring what factors make up a “home.”
Preparing for the move, we decided to leave most of our belongings and start fresh in Portland. One of the things to rehome was my cutting from the family cactus. I wanted to keep the plant in the family, so I left it with my sister, Samantha.
After our move, my first Oregon friend, Liz, walked me through her home and told me all the stories associated with her individual plants, including the stringy cactus that had grown from a piece of her grandmother’s cactus. She taught me how to propagate it myself and handed me a piece to take home. The intimacy of this exchange felt immediately familial. Liz has since passed away, and her story continues to expand through the exchange.
Also during that time, I received a cutting of a purple Tradescantia from my new friend, Nae. This cutting, too, was a descendant from a plant with an exchange history; the mother plant, tended by our friend Danica has been shared with over fifty people.
A couple months after our move I was back in Iowa, and helping my mother, Heidi, with some yard work. We were replanting hostas - a strong and durable perennial flowering plant which easily propagates - when she asked me, “Do you want to bring some to Oregon?” As a young girl, I remember Mom trimming them every year. She would spread extra pieces around the yard and give cuttings to friends and family. She always needed to find a home for the extras. I was struck in that moment by the realization that I could bring a piece of “home” with me to Portland.
The above exchanges taught me that shared plant cuttings include stories that continue to grow, from one home to another. From these humble origins, I’ve built loving relationships with the plants in my life, while striving to honor their origins and stories, and the people connected to the plants.
The relationships I have built through these exchanges are nourishing, intimate, and therapeutic. Upon learning the benefits plant care has on mental health, I started gardening and landscaping, and began buying plants from nurseries. I quickly learned how expensive plants are (e.g., some plant cuttings can cost hundreds of dollars!) I felt this natural practice that I found and spiritually connected to had suddenly become commercialized (e.g., some species or quantities of plants are considered to be symbolic of a wealthy household). I felt the plants in my house held not a financial value, but a relational value. All of these factors inspired me to open People’s Plant Museum and learn about the plants in other people’s lives.
For the Inaugural Set of People’s Plant Stories, I decided to interview family members, friends, and artists who had a direct impact on the formation of People’s Plant Museum. I hope this series allows you to pause and consider the relationships you’ve had with the plants that surround you.
I hope People’s Plant Stories will expand in people’s lives and can be passed through generations to learn about the connection people before us had with the cohabitating plants. I ask you to share the connections you’ve made with plant life, to help us honor their histories, and to share updates along the way.”
