Herbalism in Amsterdam: A Silent Revolution (EN)

During this talk, Georgia will share the stories of five herbalists in Amsterdam, and how they use their senses and intuition to communicate with plants. We will learn more about their worldviews and ways of working, while looking at Indigenous cosmologies and herbalism’s history to better understand their multi-sensory practices.

By dipping into the history of herbalism in Amsterdam, we will see how people have partnered with herbs here in the past and which forces disrupted herbal medicine practices. Hearing the stories of Amsterdam’s current herbalists shows us in which ways ancient practices are being continued, restored, and innovated upon, as part of a silent revolution.

The stories were collected as part of Georgia’s rMA thesis in Religious Studies at the University of Amsterdam (2025).

Georgia Kareola is a queer, multi-ethnic writer, researcher, and plant medicine apprentice based in Amsterdam. In their written work they honour land-based spiritual practices and more-than-rational ways of knowing, while advocating the decolonisation of land, people, and plant medicines. They are a co-founder of Neo-Metabolism, a research and design collective based in Amsterdam and New York. They recently completed an rMA in Religious Studies at the University of Amsterdam, with a thesis on the practices, worldviews, and politics of herbalists in Amsterdam.

This event took place during the festival in September 2025.