Description:
These four invasive plants that have been pulled out of the cabinet of the piece called Blacklisted: A Planted Allegory (Herbarium) and placed above the piece Blacklisted: A Planted Allegory (Collection) have been profiled as the aggressive competitors who have the potential to displace the native plants whose biomes they share, four of which are part of the Ware collection of Blaschka glass models of plants on display at the Harvard Museum of Natural History.
The herbarium was made by studying the California Invasive Species Advisory Council’s living list of invasive plant species. The Claremont Colleges and their affiliated institutions were the site of this collection. Pitzer College Art Galleries invited me to be an Artist-in-Residence during Summer 2014. During that period I hunted for, located, identified, and collected the invasive plants that I found growing on the site. Out of CISAC’s 600 listed alien-invasive plants, I found 133 which are now indexed in this collection; a group that is simultaneously highly local and totally foreign. The original pressings of the plants have been recreated as hand-cut silhouette portraits. These cutouts function as caricatures of each plant’s identifying characteristics. Along with each silhouette, is a description of the plant's Latin and vernacular names, their arrival date in California and their place of origin. It is no accident that the dates of arrival reflect the eras of manifest destiny, periods of increasingly multi-ethnic immigration and global shipping trade; humans are the primary introduction vectors. Many of these plants are now thought to be culturally Californian because of their common place in cuisine, flower beds, kitchen gardens, and the overwhelmingly human shaped landscape.
Title:
Blacklisted: A Planted Allegory (Herbarium) - Framed
Year:
2015
Media:
Painted steel, plexiglass, MDF, hardboard, brass, assorted paper, hand-cut silhouettes
Dimensions:
25" x 20" x 1.5"
