HOW ORCHIDS THINK: BECOM(E)ING ORCHIDS

How Orchids Think: Becom(e)ing Orchids is an experimental documentary that combines moving image, bodily performance, and a textual manifesto to explore the boundary between human and nature. The film begins with Charles Darwin’s story of the “theatre of orchid revelation” and traces the historical paths of orchid discovery and transplantation, while also looking at their symbolic meanings across culture, gender, and ecology. Moving through Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Suzhou, I use walking not just as a physical movement but as a way of noticing, encountering, and searching, letting the research unfold through my body and attention.

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Orchids interact with the world through resemblance, scent, and disguise, drawing others in and sustaining cycles of symbiosis. This approach inspired me to think differently about the limits of the body and perception. The film imagines a mode of existence that moves between human and plant, where imitation and transformation become ways of being. Through gesture, costume, and performative mimicry, my body becomes a site for thinking with orchids. In the final section, The Orchid Manifesto, the film invites viewers to “become orchids,” to sense and move differently, and to reflect on what it means to exist in relation to the nonhuman world.