126th metaPhorest Seminar
Friday, October 30, 2026, 19:00–21:00
126th metaPhorest Seminar by Shiryu Kirie
At the October 30 (Friday) metaPhorest Seminar, metaPhorest member Shiryu Kirie will discuss the possibilities of project development centered on botany, drawing on his work in plant research, workshops, and media production.
There will also be time for informal discussion after the seminar. We look forward to seeing you there!
Friday, October 30, 2026, 19:00–21:00
Seminar Room 3, 3rd Floor, Waseda University Joint Institution for Advanced Biomedical Sciences (TWIns)
https://maps.app.goo.gl/Wy23SqPPMo3P7V8JA
ONLINE (The video quality of the online stream may be limited, so we encourage participants to attend in person whenever possible.)
This seminar will also be available online. Zoom Link
Creating Spaces for Discovering "Wonder": Botany as a Tool for Project Development
In this seminar, metaPhorest member Shiryu Kirie will explore the idea of "creating room for possibilities" through botany-centered projects, drawing on his past activities in plant research, workshops, and media production.
Beginning with botanical research related to Monet's water lilies, Kirie has continued to develop a wide range of projects, including workshops on interfamily grafting, which connects plants from different botanical families, and editing Culture and Biology, a media platform that brings together biology and culture.
Although these activities may seem unrelated at first glance, they are rooted in a shared belief: agricultural science is not merely a means of producing food, but also a set of techniques for mediating relationships between human activities, living organisms, and natural environments.
If respect for nature and the encouragement of social engagement can create more room for mediation between humans and nature, could designing and providing experiences of "wonder" that generate emotional and social effects also be part of this role?
In this seminar, Kirie will consider how such efforts to create value through engaging content resonate with the practices of botanists of the past, and explore ways to extend biological knowledge beyond academia into spaces that allow for new possibilities.
Shiryu Kirie
Born in 1991, Shiryu Kirie holds a PhD in Agricultural Science. During his doctoral studies, he researched the selective breeding of floral morphology through the horticultural history of the water lilies depicted by painter Claude Monet.He currently works at Chitose Laboratory Corporation. Since 2015, he has been active in metaPhorest, a platform for life aesthetics, while also editing the web publication Culture and Biology and developing and conducting original workshops centered on plants.
https://shiryukirie.wixsite.com/shiryukirie
(Content is currently planned to be moved to the following website: https://shiryukirie.notion.site/Shiryu-Kiri-s-Field-Notion-6c31b7f646a743c1bb880935e05bc1fa?source=copy_link)
Culture and Biology: https://cultureandbiology.com/m/