Witchy Weeds Along the Gowanus

Gina Badger wants you to really get to know your local weeds – especially mugwort.

This weekend, the Toronto-based artist will be leading botanical tours of mugwort patches around the Gowanus as part of a project called Mongrels, at

Mugwort, also known as wild wormwood and felon herb, is a perennial plant with small yellow or red flowers. Mugwort tends to thrive under harsh environmental conditions; therefore it can be found growing in abundance near South Brooklyn’s most prestigious Superfund site. It can even be hallucinogenic in large doses.

Using historic maps of the Gowanus neighborhood to trace the history of its settlement, Badger will lead her audience on an adventure that draws on traditional folk herbalism, which Badger has been studying for years. The tour will touch upon the botanical characteristics of mugwort, its history, its ecological role in the neighborhood and its medicinal and spiritual uses. 

“Normally, in that kind of exploratory plant walk, a key part of getting to know the plant involves really touching it and crushing it and smelling it and tasting it,” Badger said. “That’s not something we can really do in a neighborhood like Gowanus that’s been severely contaminated.”

In order to complete the immersive experience, Badger will conclude Sunday’s tour with a “witching-hour reception” at Issue Project Room, where she will be serving home-made mugwort bitters. The mugwort, in this case purchased from an herb company, has been macerating in alcohol since March.

“Historically, mugwort is also a witch plant and it was used basically as a hallucinogenic, in part of the conjuring practice of witches,” Badger said, noting that those properties only arise when very high doses are applied to the body externally. “No one’s gonna get high from drinking my herbal bitters.”

The walking tour and refreshments, nicknamed “Weeds” and “Elixers,” form two parts of Badger’s project. The third, which Badger calls “Ghosts,” mixes field recordings and video taken around the Gowanus, and interviews with self-described witch, herbalist and intuitive counselor Dori Midnight.

Badger, who grew up in Edmonton, Alberta, said that Mongrels focuses on marginal landscapes and plant life as part of a larger political project tackling decolonization.

“I’m fascinated by the fact that most weeds we see in North American cities really arrived with European colonizers,” she said. “They are plants that adapted over centuries alongside the practice of agriculture, and they evolved characteristics that allowed them to survive in disturbed sites.” 

She noted the “loaded language” frequently used to describe plants like mugwort as examples: “invasives,” “alien species” and “ecosystem colonizers.”

“I think the fundamental thing is beginning to think about ecologies as things that are dynamic, that exist in time,” said Badger. “The kind of environmentalism that I try to summon in my project is not about exorcizing anything. It’s not about eradicating invasive species and replanting so-called native ones. It’s about honoring and valuing and working with exactly what you have.”

Who knew weeds could be so complicated?

Mongrels is part of Issue Project Room’s Sonic Unconscious series. Saturday’s tour begins at 3 p.m., and Sunday’s begins at 6 p.m.. Tickets for the tours are $10; the reception and screening are free.