The Dry Garden is an ongoing installation and a publication composed of vignettes and reimagined material from herbaria, where plants are dried and stored for scientific purposes. Created for my 2023 exhibition at Antenna, A Tree, A Garden, the publication reconsiders archival histories and explores how narrative can help us build more empathetic relationships with nature. Visually, the publication is a nod to Anna Atkins’ Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, the first book of photographs ever published. Touching on subjects of colonialism, public access to science, the catty humor of botanists, and ecological catastrophes, the texts detail our inherent need as humans, with all of our virtues and failings, to make sense of the world. A video flip through of the publication can be found here on Vimeo.
The Dry Garden is available for purchase at Printed Matter and via Public Knowledge Books in the UK and EU.
