This past summer was a busy one, most notably because of a new project I’ve fallen in love with. I have been working with fellow artist Gabriella Solti since last spring on a project called Botanical Sunprints: A Collaborative Visual Mapping of London’s Native Flora. Our project (funded by the London Arts Council) was a community-engaged art project, that took place at Satellite Project Space (121 Dundas St) from August 16 to September 6, 2018.

We invited community members to join us in an aesthetic and scientific exploration of the city’s parks and forests, to discover the diversity of the local flora by employing one of the earliest photographic processes, the cyanotype process (also called sunprints or blueprints). We followed in the footsteps of Anna Atkins, English botanist and the first woman photographer, and other early field biologists of the 19th century who used this process for indexing plant specimens by placing collected plants directly onto photo-sensitized paper, exposing them to sunlight and fixing the images with water and air.

Our aim was “to collectively produce a large-scale visual map of the native flora of neighbourhood parks that highlights the ecological diversity of the land.” Beyond connecting participants’ experiences to the history of photography and botany, our project fostered social bonds through shared production and collective reflection on nature and community.

All events and workshops were free and suitable for all ages and abilities. Our program was as follows, with some additional workshop times in the final days.

Thursday, August 16 5:30-8:30PM - Opening Reception and Presentation:

PLANT IDENTIFICATION presentation by Dr. Sheila Macfie, plant scientist and Dr. Gordon Neish, agricultural consultant and aspiring field botanist.

Friday, August 17 12-5PM - Drop-in workshop:

Pressing collected plants and identifying them; making cyanotypes

Friday, August 17 7PM

NATURE WALK IN THE COVES led by Becky Ellis, Ph.D. student in the Geography department at Western University. Meet us at the parking lot of the German Canadian Club, 1 Cove Rd, London

Saturday, August 18 12-5PM