3 Juan Francisco Mancera, Giganton. Datura from the Drawings of the Royal Botanical Expedition to the New Kingdom of Granada. Image from the digitalization project of the drawings of the Royal Botanical Expedition to the New Kingdom of Granada (1783-1816) directed by José Celestino Mutis: www.rjb.csic.es/icones/mutis. Real Jardín Botánico-CSIC. Reproduced by kind permission of the Real Jardín Botánico.

Contexts in source publication

Context 1

... and discoveries. In Taxones Tabatinga 12 (Tabatinga Taxons, 2014), for example, Baraya catalogues the different kinds of artificial plants and flowers he finds in a decorative display in a hairdressing salon owned by Nicolasa, who appears in a photograph placed next to the species identified, brandishing her bouquet with a coquettish smile (see Fig. 3.1). In a similar way, other Herbario plates contain photographs showing the shop windows or market stalls where flowers were found or the cultural uses to which they are put. Such references to specific natural or human environments are entirely absent from the illustrations commissioned by Mutis and other leaders of New World ...

Context 2

... for them in their native environment. 16 For Latour, these and other "immutable mobiles" natural environments in which the real plants, which contain toxic hallucinogens, are typically found, as well as notes on their use in Europe and America by magicians and shamans for the healing of wounds or the divination of a patient's illnesses (see Fig. 3.2). By contrast, the elegant Datura illustration produced for Mutis (see Fig. 3.3) is full of botanical information that would aid identification, folding flowers and spiny fruit into its design, but it reveals nothing beyond the morphology of the plant, which is set against a plain white background. 13. played a vital role in the rise of ...

Context 3

... mobiles" natural environments in which the real plants, which contain toxic hallucinogens, are typically found, as well as notes on their use in Europe and America by magicians and shamans for the healing of wounds or the divination of a patient's illnesses (see Fig. 3.2). By contrast, the elegant Datura illustration produced for Mutis (see Fig. 3.3) is full of botanical information that would aid identification, folding flowers and spiny fruit into its design, but it reveals nothing beyond the morphology of the plant, which is set against a plain white background. 13. played a vital role in the rise of capitalism and the European domination of other cultures. 17 As such ...

Context 4

... to Tumaco, a city in the Pacific lowlands of Colombia, Baraya produced a series of plates on cacao, one of the main crops grown in the region. Cacao, beso de cacao (Cacao, Cacao Kiss, 2018) features the longitudinal cross-section of a cacao pod made-as the description below tells us-of thermoformed plastic with a heart of polystyrene foam (see Fig. 3.4). Below, where we would normally expect to see smaller illustrations of the plant's characteristic features, Baraya inserts wrappers for a chocolate-covered candy manufactured by Nestlé called "Beso de negra" (black woman's kiss). 20 The bold red packaging is adorned with images of voluptuous lips and an alluring black woman in a ...

Context 5

... photographs of the branches and twigs that have been carried along by the force of the Río Patía demonstrate the heightened flood risk caused by deforestation. 29 Other photographs in colour provide snapshots of other kinds of human intervention. One shows how a cactus has grown to incorporate the rusting barbed wire that encircled it ( Fig. 3.5), while another reveals how a climbing plant has twisted itself around a wire fence, using it as a support to reach further from its roots ( Fig. 3.6). In a further photograph, grasses are starting to grow over a pile of abandoned beer bottle tops. Although the presence of barbed wire transecting plant tissues is disconcerting, these ...

Context 6

... by deforestation. 29 Other photographs in colour provide snapshots of other kinds of human intervention. One shows how a cactus has grown to incorporate the rusting barbed wire that encircled it ( Fig. 3.5), while another reveals how a climbing plant has twisted itself around a wire fence, using it as a support to reach further from its roots ( Fig. 3.6). In a further photograph, grasses are starting to grow over a pile of abandoned beer bottle tops. Although the presence of barbed wire transecting plant tissues is disconcerting, these images do not ultimately direct our attention to the human devastation of nature; indeed, they testify more to the resilience and ingenuity of plants ...

Context 7

... bring into focus the condition of coexistence that binds humans and plants together, as closely as a vine wrapped around a length of wire. The photographs are interspersed with unframed sheets of paper used to produce sketches, handwritten notes and colour tests for the botanical illustrations created for the Caldas exhibition (see, for example, Fig. 3.7). These notes and sketches are the result of an individual encounter with a plant; here they act as a deconstructed version of the final portrait, the proof-as De Valdenebro writes-that "el trabajo posterior es la construcción de un simulacro" (the work that ensues is the construction of a simulacrum). 30 It is this simulacrum of a ...

Context 8

... journey from the nineteenth century to the twenty-first). This recognition of the deep integration between human culture and what we consider to be the natural world is also evident in Heterogéneas/ Criminales (Heterogeneous/Criminales, 2012). The work is composed of two sets of illustrations, painted in watercolour: one of maize seeds (see Fig. 3.8) and the other of beans. In each, the upper series shows eight different varieties of the same species, while the lower line consists of eight digital reproductions of a transgenic seed, one identical to the next. A clear contrast is introduced between the surprising diversity of maize seeds and beans, of different colours, shapes, ...

Context 9

... which attempt to trace alternative encounters between humans and plants that are not ones of subordination and standardization. Frailejonmetría comparada esc 1:1 (Comparative Frailejonmetry scale 1:1, 2020) shows a frailejón (Espeletia grandiflora), a plant that grows in Colombia's highaltitude páramos and is endemic to this ecosystem (Fig. 3.9). 38 In many ways, the illustration has been produced according to the traditions of botanical art: every detail of the plant's appearance-its yellow flowers, the green leaves curling upwards, and the brown-grey marcescent leaves that droop below to form a skirt around the trunk-is richly and meticulously rendered in watercolour, and ...

Context 10

... seen from above, De Valdenebro imprinted different parts of her own body alongside those of the frailejón to show the relative size of each. She covered her hand, arm, foot, calf, ear, and face with dark red ink before pressing them onto the paper, placing them next to similar impressions made from the leaves and flowers of the frailejón (see Fig. 3.10). Handwritten inscriptions compare the dimensions of human and plant ...

Context 11

... for the astounding complexity and rapid divergence of genital forms. 52 On the Marriages of Plants was a celebration of the seductive beauty of the reproductive organs of flowering plants. A huge display cabinet was filled with silk blooms of many colours, shapes, and textures, lit dramatically in a darkened space to accentuate their vivid hues (Fig. 3.11). These flowers are not only aesthetically appealing, but also accurate scientific models, with the anatomy of their petals and reproductive parts rendered with precision. Erected around the cabinet were "walls" made of large sheets of black fabric, onto which had been printed enlarged photographs of flowers with their petals removed, ...

Context 12

... models, with the anatomy of their petals and reproductive parts rendered with precision. Erected around the cabinet were "walls" made of large sheets of black fabric, onto which had been printed enlarged photographs of flowers with their petals removed, showing their stamens and pistils, responsible for producing pollen and ovules respectively (Fig. 3.12). Lighting was installed behind the fabric, shining through the flowers to give them a glowing luminosity. These "undressed" specimens had been photographed for an earlier project entitled Naked Flora (2013). Cardoso chose flowers from her local neighbourhood, stripped them of their petals, and used a macro lens combined with a ...

Context 13

... display cabinets, made in dark wood and glass, of nineteenth-century origin. These housed microscopes and papier mâché models of flowers and insects that were used to teach anatomy, all from the Powerhouse Museum collection, alongside enlarged models of different kinds of pollen grain that Cardoso had produced for her Museum of Copulatory Organs (Fig. 3.13). The importance of interspecies reciprocity in plant reproduction was also conveyed through a work of sound art commissioned for the gallery, which brought the space alive with the buzzing and chirping of bees, birds, and other pollinators. Humans are also important pollinators of plants. The sheer beauty and seductive quality of ...