How does the natural world endorse abolition as a strategy for liberation? Building on the success, learnings, and momentum of Solitary Gardens and The Abolitionist’s Apothecary+, Growing Abolition is a multi-pronged cultural organizing strategy centered around abolitionist gardens, social practice and cultural initiatives designed by artists, exonerees, and organizers. Through the act of shared gardening and producing our wellness products, this project aims to demonstrate how ignoring the vitality of “other” impoverishes our own imaginations and collective well-being. Abolition requires accumulative success, education, innovation and a relationship to the unknown. It requires society to abandon its cultural reliance on punishment, surveillance and policing as the dominant responses to harm.

The Abolitionist’s Apothecary+, an outgrowth of Solitary Gardens, is a traveling, community-driven strategy, and social practice dedicated to abolition, health-care sovereignty and collective healing. The apothecary is built with plant medicine grown in collaboration with incarcerated individuals from around the country. The PA will offer plant medicine and healing justice workshops to impacted communities and arts organizations as part of a national tour (2022). Based in New Orleans, at The John Thompson Legacy Center, The Abolitionist’s Apothecary is rooted in abolitionist pedagogy and practice.

As the plant medicine is designed in collaboration with people who are currently incarcerated, it provides a unique opportunity for folks to heal communities they are often accused of harming, transcending American perceptions of criminality, restitution, and redemption.