While I was on a residency in Tuscany every day I would walk around the village through the forests by the river. In the process of reconnecting with nature, I observed as the landscape changes every day with wind, rain, sun or time. The residency became a sort of a pilgrimage of my own with the vast nature serving as a guide for introspection.

The work combines photography and cyanotypes to create a visual plant map. In travels around the region, I have accumulated various plants, some very typical such as an olive tree or rosemary but also lesser know sorts and common weeds.

Extracted from their natural habitat, plants were transferred to cotton paper using the method of cyanotype. Originally used to make architectural blueprints, this technique allows for a systematic and encyclopedic approach as every plant needs to be picked, stored, flattened and then transferred before it wilts. These reproductions of plants are then juxtaposed against the black-and-white landscapes depicting the environment from which the plant has been extracted. The work also features earth cyanotype which was made by burying the paper into the ground on the premises of the house where I lived for a month.

In gathering plants and photographing the encountered scenes I tried to rekindle a simpler approach to the medium of photography. As I collected and appropriated parts of the landscape I created a visual diary of my journey, a sort of a personal herbarium.

This work was made during Dr. Éva Kahan Residency.