These works are part of a larger body of photographic work I have been developing as part of a RSA Residency for Scotland at Stills, Edinburgh (2022-2023.) Exploring sustainable darkroom practices, gardening, materiality, symbolism and the environment as interconnected and overlapping concerns. This series of works considers an encounter with the natural world on a number of levels; materially, emotionally and symbolically.
Taking leave from Jane Bennet’s concept of the hetroverse, a term denoting how ‘the heterogenous elements in nature intersect or influence one another and how this ensemble of intersections does not form a unified or self-sufficient whole, ’ the works propose a non-hierarchical relationship with the natural forms around us. At the centre of this body of work is the idea of plant as protagonist, as the subject matter rather than background detail and the observations of subtle movements of growth and decay. New works have explored the plants as both materials and subject matter and explored the terrain of the plant as protagonist, process and equal.