Roots and Relations Lab is a student-led project by Sammie Yang, a high-school senior who spent the past two summers conducting fieldwork in Danba Zhonglu Village, Sichuan, Tibetan Plateau. The project asks how plants enter everyday life and how knowledge grows through relationships with a place.
The collection brings plant portraits and written accounts into conversation with this fieldwork. Food, care, household practices, and memories offer different starting points for understanding what a plant can mean to the people who know it.
The sixteen plant essays currently draw on a supplied reference booklet. They keep the names of its narrators and the page references for each account. The accompanying visual archive draws on a second collection of sketches, photographs, and reflections. These materials offer ways of asking questions; their specific species and community practices are not presented as independently verified findings from Danba Zhonglu Village.
Listening is central to this approach. A remembered taste, a distinction between roots, or an account of gathering can reveal knowledge that a botanical label alone does not convey. The essays make room for these details while keeping reported experience distinct from editorial interpretation.
The project begins from the value of sustained attention. Returning to a place, looking closely, and listening to different accounts can keep questions open as understanding develops. The lab is a space for this continuing work, rooted in the past two summers in Danba Zhonglu Village.