URBAN ECOLOGIES

In one of my Landscape Architecture courses, we were discussing the importance of “weeds” in adding to the productivity of urban ecologies. Most of these plants that grow out of the cracks on pavements, in back alleys, or by creeks, are non-native and grow in these sidelined places because they are adapted to parallel environmental conditions in their native habitat; the crack in the ground next the a building takes the place of the shady, damp base of a cliff. These plants, as well as plenty of native specimens, have come to play a vital yet very subtle role in the health of cities where they provide habitat value for animals, and valiantly help to filter our air and water. 

What’s so interesting about these exotic plant populations is that they come from equally diverse locations as the human population, and the parallels between the conditions of plant and human immigrants is very alluring. Through this project, I set out to document and highlight plants that struck me in my local landscape in order to pay homage to these stories and see art in these often sidelined but valuable characters. 

I wanted to photograph the plants in a way that isolated them from their environment as humans often are, all while viewing them as things of compelling beauty and sculpture in and of themselves. I was initially inspired by counterculture photography of the 70s and 90s that I associate with intense flashes and a slightly unsettling or enigmatic atmosphere. To unite the concept and visual inspiration, I made white backgrounds to essentially objectify the plant, and photographed at night under bright artificial light in a way that added just enough of the surrounding context, but also mystery. I hope I’ve struck a line between veneration and novel creation.