RESEARCH FILM
Heracles of Hogweed
2021 - 25, 4K, 32 min.
(2021-35, 32 min, 4K)
Heracles of Hogweed is a meditative film essay by Adam Vackar that interlaces artistic inquiry with ecological and philosophical research, unfolding around the figure of the Giant Hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum). Shot in 4K over several years of fieldwork and studio-based research, the 32-minute film brings together visual recordings, sculptural interventions, and in-depth conversations with botanists, ecologists, and theorists to examine this enigmatic plant as both a biological entity and a cultural construction.
Rather than reinforcing the dominant narrative that frames invasive species as ecological threats to be eradicated, Heracles of Hogweed challenges viewers to confront the deeper ideological structures that underlie our binary relation to nature. The film traces how the Giant Hogweed—originally introduced to Europe as an ornamental marvel—has come to embody fear, alienation, and disorder within contemporary environmental discourse. Its transformation from botanical curiosity to ecological scapegoat reveals how ideas of purity, control, and foreignness continue to shape our relationship to the non-human world.
Through a combination of poetic visuals and rigorous intellectual engagement, Vackar repositions the Hogweed as a metaphor for systemic imbalance, but also as a potential site of healing and reimagining. The film proposes that in order to move beyond fear-based models of nature, we must cultivate a more nuanced, reciprocal, and post-anthropocentric understanding of ecological systems—one that embraces complexity, ambiguity, and mutual transformation.
Heracles of Hogweed is ultimately an invitation to reconsider our position within a world we do not dominate, but inhabit alongside countless other life forms. It calls for a rebalancing of human and plant agency, and for new ways of seeing that acknowledge not only harm, but also resilience, adaptation, and the unexpected wisdom embedded in vegetal life.