Plants and fungi transformed the planet through the creation of soil and the production of oxygen. The New Herbarium explores our entangled dependence on an ever-changing environment and the increasingly chaotic results of our desire to shape the natural world.
In the series, I reimagine the centuries-old process of collecting and preserving plants for science and art. Traditionally, herbaria contain botanical specimens that are pressed and arranged on paper. Influenced by this practice, I depart from tradition when I place a foraged mushroom, gill-side down, on top of pressed plants. After the billions of spores contained within the gills of the mushroom are released, they fall and mark the paper. The plant, acting as stencil, is then removed and its silhouette is rendered in spores. Leaves, flowers, and stems reference photosynthesis, upon which ecosystems depend. Spores reference mycorrhiza, the ancient and intimate collaboration in which plants and fungi share nutrients and information.
I provide the paper canvas, but exactly where, when, and how the spores land is beyond my control. Completed spore prints – powdery, strange, familiar - are fragile, so I preserve them in photographs.
