Leonie Brandner: Three Becomes Two Becomes One Becomes None: Cosmopoiesis of Mandragoras

An artist’s rigorous examination of the historical and future significance of a hallucinogenic member of the nightshade family

The mandragora plant, commonly known as the mandrake, is one of the best-recorded gynecological herbal substances. It is also the only plant in the European context historically depicted as half human and half plant. In the richly illustrated Three Becomes Two Becomes One Becomes None, the Swiss artist Leonie Brandner (born 1992) explores the medicinal and magical properties of the plant, moving from the beginning of recorded storytelling to ancient Egyptian and Greek mythology and the many other stories that have grown around mandragora throughout history. Joining rigorous historical research with her own perception and encounters, she traces mandragora through medicinal tomes and folklore, eventually arriving at the impact the plant had during the witch hunts of the Middle Ages. Could the mandragora’s many stories hold the potential for new orders and world-making? Brandner creates a dazzling kaleidoscopic image of human–plant imaginations across time.