PROGRAM
Our project, Botanical Sunprints: A Collaborative Visual Mapping of London’s Native Flora, is a community-engaged art project, that will take place at Satellite Project Space (121 Dundas St) from August 16 - 25, 2018.
We invite you to both 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 will follow 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.
We will 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 fosters social bonds through shared production and collective reflection on nature and community.
All events and workshops are FREE and suitable for all ages and abilities.
We invite you to both 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 will follow 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.
We will 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 fosters social bonds through shared production and collective reflection on nature and community.
All events and workshops are FREE and suitable for all ages and abilities.
SCHEDULE
Thursday, August 16 5:30-8:30PM |
Opening Reception |
Thursday, August 16 6PM |
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 |
Drop-in workshop: pressing collected plants and identifying them; making cyanotypes |
Sunday, August 19 2:30PM |
FIELD TRIP TO MEADOWLILY NATURE PRESERVE led by Dr. Daria Koscinski, Conservation Property Manager at Thames Talbot Land Trust and Dr. Gordon Neish. Meet us at the Meadowlily Trailhead, 1139 Hamilton Rd, London |
Wednesday, August 22 12-5PM |
Drop-in workshop: pressing collected plants and identifying them; making cyanotypes |
Thursday, August 23 1-5PM |
Drop-in workshop: pressing collected plants and identifying them; making cyanotypes |
Thursday, August 23 6PM |
TWO-EYED SEEING, a presentation on the practice of blended Indigenous and European approaches to ways of knowing by Dr. Andrew Judge, Irish-Anishinaabe scholar |
Friday, August 24 1-5PM |
Drop-in workshop: pressing collected plants and identifying them; making cyanotypes |
Saturday, August 25 1-5PM |
Drop-in workshop: pressing collected plants and identifying them; making cyanotypes |