In The Botanist’s Daughter, Alexandra Haeseker explores the theme of climate change coherently through the materials, techniques and set up selected by the artist. The exhibition space offers an immersive experience where the over-saturated reworked photographs of natural specimens are enlarged reversing the relationship of scale between the viewers and such elements. The overpowering effect of such stylistic approach encourages the audience to reflect on a new paradigm in relating to the world and especially to nature.
The themes of death and ephemeral are omnipresent in the exhibition, expressing the artist’s anxiety towards the future of the planet and asking her audience to question themselves in relationship to such issues. All plants are in fact represented uprooted, some of them displayed tilted to one side as if eradicated, some even showing signs of worm holes pointing at their imminent death and disappearance.
The insects chosen by Haeseker are ephemeral animals which embody the frailty of life and that of the survival of these species as jeopardised by human behaviour. Change as underlying themes also emerges in Edge featuring a gigantic red autumn leaf, which shows signs of decay and points toward the end of a life cycle. The over-saturated colours of the exhibition convey a sense of visceral violence especially expressed in the almost blood-tinted roots of the eradicated plants and the sun-scorched colour of Fallen which humanise the death of natural specimens, provoking a strong reaction in the viewer. This sense of unease is catalysed and further enhanced by artwork such as Flies where a swarm of over-scaled insects covers and dissolves one of the tall walls of the exhibition, causing a sense of repulsion.
Having had the chance to talk to the artist, I discovered how her practice and choice of material further convey the tension between ephemeral and eternal, death and its overcoming. The photographs are in fact printed on recycled plastic, created originally for billboards in a bus stop shelter, thus extremely enduring and resistant to weather, and as a consequence to change. The support as well as the UV latex ink enhance her sustainable practice in the choice of recycled and plant based materials.
Overall, the great durability of the material contrasts the ephemeral, decadent and time-affected subject matters explored by Haeseker. She explained to me how the natural specimens come from engravings which were produced in the past as expression of excitement and celebration of the discovery and the acquisition of further scientific knowledge. In modern days instead, her artworks take a completely different perspective transmitting the artists’ anxiety that such specimens may die out and become unknown to future generations. By monumentalizing these subjects Haeseker fossilises them in time and space and creates an immersive experience which re-frames the viewer’s position as a diminutive presence.
In its moving and politically stimulating actuality, this exhibition deserves to be praised. The artist achieves her purpose to challenge the anthropocentric modern attitude through a coherent and compelling body of work, which pushes the audience to consider humans as equal if not even inferior elements integrated and dependent in an ecosystem presented in the process of destruction.
While at Edinburgh Printmakers, I would also recommend sparing some time to visit Photography in Print as well. This exhibition offers a selection of predominantly Scottish-based artists exploring landscape and experimenting photographic techniques. Each of them takes quite a different approach to a similar subject matter, creating a moving exhibition, full of surprises. Personally my favourite pieces were the Beyond the Surface series and Kristina Chan and Itamar Freed’s Dream in Blue as they both left me in awe for conveying a sense of magic and creating a surreal suspended reality by re-framing that which surrounds us. Other works by Morwenna Kearsley, Marysia Lachowich and Nicholas Devison also add valuable accents to the project.
- Backbone @ Underbelly Bristo Square - 23rd August 2019
- Goliath in the Water @ Assembly Checkpoint - 22nd August 2019