Workshop Description:

State violence is a brutal reality for many; an experience which is racialised, classed and gendered in its design and application. What mutual aid can herbalists offer to help people survive these experiences? This workshop aims to explore herbalism’s role in revolutionary movements working for the abolition of the state and the prison industrial complex, while sharing tangible, practical medicine making recipes and tools to take care of each other for the long haul.

Nicole Rose (she/her) is an anarchist organiser and grassroots herbalist and living in England who has been active in struggles for human, animal and earth liberation for over 20 years. Nicole did a 3.5-year prison sentence aged 21 amidst a decade of state repression against the campaign to close down Europe’s largest animal testing company. She’s been supporting loved ones in prison for over 15 years and founded the Solidarity Apothecary, a project supplying free plant medicines to people experiencing and recovering from state violence and repression. The mission of the Solidarity Apothecary is to materially support revolutionary struggles and communities with plant medicines to strengthen collective autonomy, self-defence and resilience to climate change, capitalism and state violence. Nicole is the author of The Prisoner’s Herbal and Overcoming Burnout. She also helped start the Prisoners Herbalism Collective which is supporting prisoners to learn about plant medicines inside.