In this volume of the CCA Singles series, Yutong Lin traces the legacy of botanical exploration in an area of the Himalaya-Hengduan mountain chain known as Zomia, a term coined in 2002 to refer to the largest region of inhabitants not governed by a nation state.

The book is a result of Lin’s participation in the CCA Emerging Curator program, which aims to take the institution’s curatorial work into unexplored territories.

Lin, an artist and curator, returned to the region—her hometown—to retrace the travels of early twentieth-century plant hunters. The variable Himalayan topographies sustain an extraordinary variety of flora and fauna and, over the years, have inspired mythical imaginaries of bountiful lands. Zomia Garden focuses on Joseph Rock, a famous plant hunter in the 1920s whose approach to botany, landscape, and culture was transformed by his encounters with Indigenous Nakhi guides and their language and rituals. Juxtaposing her photographs and itinerary alongside Rock’s, Lin untangles the histories of colonialism, mythmaking, and resistance woven into the hunt for rare plant species and botanical knowledge.

A series of related web articles by invited artists and scholars uncovers the archival, scientific, and aesthetic histories of specific plant species in the region.