When & Where
When: 1 December 2025, 10:15-11:30
Where: Unitobler, F012
As examples of the production of public "green narratives" (Kosativa, 2023), the aestheticization of urban spaces as part of 'nature' are increasingly prevalent. In this presentation, I will examine contemporary realisations of urban flora and their potential effects on producing apparently sustainable spaces. In addressing the semiotic dimension of urban planting, I aim to expand semiotic landscape research and contribute to studies of environmental discourse. The empirical focus of my presentation will be data collected during fieldwork in five German cities (Rathingen, Essen, Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Cologne) which I analyse using multimodal tools from social semiotics; the analysis is also informed by perspectives from the wider interdisciplinary field of environmental studies. Specifically, I organize my analysis around three ways flora are typically realized in urban space: (1) images of flora, (2) plastic plants, and (3) organic greenery. Ultimately, this study considers the extent to which these flora-associated emplacements frame and visualize sustainability by mimicking nature in idealised and often aestheticized ways.
Bio
Laura Imhoff is a doctoral researcher in the Department of Anglophone Studies, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. She previously studied Sociology and German Studies at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. Her current research focuses on climate change discourses and the semiotics of (un)sustainable place-making.
