In When Would You Like to Turn Into a Pumpkin?, you are a pumpkin unmoored in space and time. You are in Aotearoa, East Anglia, Napa Valley, and Oaxaca. It is 7153 B.C., 1277, 2116, and 2005. You are a seed, a scent, a blossom, a prizewinner, a Jack O’Lantern, and rot.

In this interactive work of speculative plant studies, the wife-and-wife artist team of Cara and Lilia invite you to follow the journey of a plant that has shaped and been shaped by humans.

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Cara Giaimo (b. 1989) finds new ways to tell stories about animals and plants. She is the author of the sea creature-based life advice book Leaving The Ocean Was a Mistake and the bestselling nature compendium Atlas Obscura: Wild Life. She is also a frequent contributor to the New York Times, where she has covered everything from platypus fluorescence to tree immortality. Cara is the recipient of a Somerville Local Cultural Council grant and has been an artist in residence at Hewnoaks (with her band, sidebody), and Mount Auburn Cemetery (with Lilia).

Lilia Kilburn (b. 1990) works with images, sounds, textiles, texts, and in our garden. She is a Fellow at the Harvard Film Study Center and a PhD Candidate in Critical Media Practice and Anthropology at Harvard, where she also teaches. Recently she has contributed to public programming at the Harvard Film Archive, the Bibliothèque publique d'information du Centre Pompidou, and the ICA Boston. Her most recent film Le serpent à Bonanjo was a collaboration with Cameroon-based artist collective Cinema nyanga njangi.

They live in Somerville, Massachusetts with their two black cats.