"sLowlife"

The beaker of chlorophyll pictured above is part of a new art exhibit opening in the nations capital this month that aims to convince the public that plants are just as complex as animals and to dispel the common misconception that plants are a lower form of life.

Called "sLowlife," the exhibit is the brainchild of Roger Hangarter, a biologist at Indiana University Bloomington and a former president of the American Society of Plant Biologist. Hangarter said his goal was to show the public that plants behave just like animals, just...slower.

"I hope people will go away from the exhibit with a greater awareness of plants as living organisms after seeing how they are capable of sensing and responding to their surroundings," Hangarter said.

The play on words in the exhibit's title is meant to be interpreted in a number of ways.

"One is that many people think of plants as lower life forms, a misunderstanding the exhibit hopes to dispel," Hangarter said. "Second, plants are rooted in the ground, so much of their substance is beneath the space humans typically experience as they move around...Last, the 'slow' part of the title refers to the fact that plants essentially live in a different temporal universe that is not noticed in the context of human beings' frantic lives."

Hangarter created the sLowlife exhibition in collaboration with Dennis Dehart, an artist at Buffalo State University in New York and John Gibson, a composer at the Indiana University School of Music.

sLowlife opens October 27^th at the U.S. Botanic Garden Conservatory in Washington D.C.

--Ker Than

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Credit: Roger Hangarter and Dennis DeHart