Helen Knowles

Indexed Beings

Mon 1 December 2025

Alison Richard Building

Indexed Beings is a 42-minute artist film by Helen Knowles, created in collaboration with the indigenous Kamëntsá, Inga, Cofan, and Siona communities in Mocoa, Putumayo, Colombia. The work re-enacts a real dispute between a scientist and a local taita (shaman) at the Herbario Etnobotánico del Piedemonte, exploring contrasting worldviews on plant life. For the scientist, the herbarium protects biodiversity and territory; for the taita, plants are sentient beings that cannot be classified. Through performance and dialogue, the film questions how scientific knowledge changes when we recognise more-than-human intelligence, and asks whose knowledge truly counts.

The screening will be followed by a conversation with artist Helen Knowles and Soraida Chindoy Buesaquillo — an indigenous guardian, mother, and activist defending the sacred Putumayo mountains. Soraida is a collaborator on the film.

Our aim is to create spaces where difficult but necessary conversations about colonial legacies, intellectual property, and plant knowledge can unfold—centered on the voices of the communities most impacted. It has been important to find a series of diverse venues which are not only galleries but places which cross into other disciplines like botany and activism. Such contexts will further activate the work.

This event is co-organised by the Decolonising Plant Knowledge Research Network and the Centre of Latin American Studies at the University of Cambridge.

Cost: free