After Hortus Malabaricus: Sensing and Presencing Rare Plants
- Submitting institution
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Arts University Bournemouth, the
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- Bowen_32063 Hortus
- Type
- M - Exhibition
- Venue(s)
- Inverleith House, Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, Oxford and Vienna. Also, disseminated at venues in California (as part of an international programme of events: Extraction: Art at the Edge of the Abyss)
- Open access status
- -
- Month of first exhibition
- January
- Year of first exhibition
- 2020
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- Yes
- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- Yes
- Double-weighted statement
- The depth of this project’s ambition demanded sustained six-year engagement (R&D period followed by a Leverhulme Fellowship), drawing together perspectives from fine art, botany and plant science, museology and cultural geography. Attending for the first time to assess relationships between key historical herbaria,17th century plant treatise, “Hortus Malabaricus” and the status of vulnerable plants, it was necessary to mobilise a national and international cohort of partners. Analysis of a huge body of specimens and data from across three distinct historical and contemporary 'sites' (“Hortus Malabaricus”; historical herbaria and remote Indian tropical forests), led to this highly complex visual arts investigation.
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- After Hortus Malabaricus: Sensing & Presencing Rare Plants through Contemporary Drawing Practice was a solo exhibition of 80 works (drawings, video works and artist books).
It aimed to establish an original discourse to bridge debates on contemporary drawing, materiality and the vulnerable nature of plant life. Also to enhance an understanding of the vulnerabilities and resilience of rare plants through research at the interstices of fine art, botany and plant science, museology and cultural geography.
Navigating through three distinct sites of knowledge - the seventeenth century treatise on Malabar’s plants, Hortus Malabaricus; UK historical herbaria; and South Indian rainforest - the project stimulated innovative modes of drawing through considerations relating to the collection and preservation of rare plants. Generating a distinctive body of artworks at world-leading plant science research facilities and in bio-diverse rainforest, the research asked: In what ways can drawing, not as analytical illustration but rather as a material phenomenon capable of generating new knowledge, represent the vulnerabilities and resilience of rare plants?
Field visits to plant science research facilities and Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary, based in the bio-diverse South Indian rainforest, incrementally expanded an understanding of the ontological status of plant specimens in relation to site, whilst interdisciplinary methods offered new ways to engage with herbaria and navigate through protected areas of remote rainforest. This enabled consideration of how dialogue between science and art might be reflected through the conceptual and material aspects of the resulting art works, and the nature of their reception.
The research was funded through a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship, 2017-20. The work was disseminated through an exhibition held at Inverleith House, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE); 2020. Further dissemination took place through a conference and series of public talks at RBGE, 2020, and through a web-based portfolio (RBGE: Botanic Stories Series).
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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