Growing Towards the Light

Growing_three iron tables chairs plants prints background

MGNH_gallery one_long view of room tables in center

MGNH_gallery one_empty cabinet drawers on floor mirror photograph

Collinson_three silver oval frames black plants inside text strips

Collinson_black plants pinned text strips blue background

Collinson_black plant pinned text strips orange background

dimensions variable

2015-2016

metal tables, steel, bronze, cast iron, wood, pigments, inkjet prints

In the second section of the exhibition, I explore an area of new botanical interest that developed in France and Germany during the 1700s. Botanica physica, the physics of botany, studied the parts of plants and their connections to the environment. Natural philosophers such as Stephen Hales and Charles Bonnet investigated how plants draw nutrients from the soil, whether leaves and stems turn towards a light source, and ways that plants travel underground through root structures.

In Growing Towards the Light, I re-imagined some of the historical experiments done by people such as Hales and Bonnet.

I see these three tables as sites for experimental study.

history of natural history