sarah misra

The act of recording scientific investigations as images has been intrinsically tied to natural history, and opens avenues for new understandings. My work, which is imagined hybridized species of plants, uses contemporary technology (digital image manipulation of historical illustrations) and the rudimentary tools of the early botanist (scalpel, tweezers, dye); these dimensional collages are new hybrid species of non-existent flora presented in the aesthetics of the early specimen case. Some of the plants fade away to monochrome, questioning what is gained and lost as biodiversity ceases to become a natural phenomenon and instead becomes a man-made institution. Herbaria have always been invested with human passions and biases, now natural collections are laden with a contemporary urgency as ecological literacy requires embodied, empathetic and ethical relationships with the natural systems that sustain life on this planet.