People’s Plant Museum
PPM is an experimental arts institution and living archive dedicated to exploring the relationships between people and plants. Founded by artist Emma Duehr in 2019, the museum operates as both a physical plant collection and a growing digital repository of personal narratives, interviews, and exchanges surrounding plant care, propagation, and cultural significance.
Originally housed in a Southeast Portland residence, PPM reimagined the domestic interior as a site of curation, participation, and dialogue. Every plant in the collection has been acquired through community-based exchange—via cuttings, donations, and trades—and is accompanied by a documented story reflecting its social and geographic lineage. This evolving archive honors plant-human entanglements while challenging the commercialization of plant culture by foregrounding relational value over financial worth.
Through tours, participatory events, workshops, and an online resource library, PPM serves as a space for reflection on cohabitation, memory, and the cultural practice of plant exchange. It invites visitors to share stories, propagate new connections, and participate in a broader inquiry into the role plants play in shaping identity, home, and collective memory.
Guest curators and collaborators are invited to contribute to The Collection and help grow the Museum’s reach into both domestic and public space. As the project continues to evolve, People’s Plant Museum remains committed to documenting and celebrating the shared histories that live between humans and the plants they care for.