Entangled Among Things: Kudzu As a Creative Medium in Contemporary Southern Art

Kudzu is a sprawling vine that is categorized in the United States as an invasive species known to grow natively in East and Southeast Asia. Having traveled to the US in the nineteenth century and undergone a variety of changing functions in southern societies, this plant has a complex and mobile history. Today, kudzu is widely considered a nemesis to southern biodiversity and a mythological representation of the South. Working from an ethical praxis of care, this paper investigates the ways that artists working with kudzu have reimagined the vine as a tool for responding to, rather than working against, the complexity of the contemporary southern landscape. This kudzu-filled landscape is an ecological, political, and historical site of tangible and metaphorical entanglement. Using historical research, personal memoir, and artist interviews, this paper advocates for caring relationships amidst humans and more-than-human others through a hyper-focus on the stories held within materials.