The wild plant library

Abstract

Mostar contains a multiplicity of ruined, abandoned and contested spaces, a consequence of the war in which it was involved between 1992 and 1996. But to define those spaces today we cannot think only of the violent changes that originated them. The fact that war ruins remained long after the end of the armed conflict, becoming blank spots in the city, allowed them to slowly transform into something else. The abandonment of those structures enabled the processes of ruination and decay to progress, making them less appealing to humans and giving space for non-human actors to start reclaiming portions of the city.
Today, new and renovated buildings stand between neglected ruins and stalled constructions, many of them overgrown by spontaneous vegetation. Plants have taken over the leftovers of war, shaping a new kind of space that is neither completely urban nor wild: the urban wilderness. And if we look even closer into this combination of apparently dissimilar conditions, we will find a kind of coexistence that goes beyond the sharing of spaces in the city. What was once an area of general destruction is now covered by plants growing directly from war debris and contaminated soils. With time, man-made and plants have further entangled, forming hybrids where matter and life intersect and support each other, turning ruined areas into the perfect ground for new interactions between humans and non-humans.