Klik hier voor Nederlands
Photographer and filmmaker Sabine Rovers (1992) visualizes hopeful stories that connect us with the natural world around us. She often finds these stories close to home. So, instead of showing apocalyptic images of melting ice caps, she created a photo series about Cowboy Kees, who is revived by the beauty and power of nature. And rather than zooming in on large-scale monocultures in agriculture, her film showcases Habbo’s hidden food forest in The Hague, which was created by means of Guerrilla gardening. This last film also led to the idea for the installation We’ve Always Been Here for You – The Magical Power of Forgotten Plants (2024-ongoing).
With this installation Rovers hopes to encourage a more sustainable and healthy future by restoring our severed connection with the edible and medicinal plants that are usually considered weeds. She selected 43 of the most common species, extracted pigments from them and used sunlight to make prints of the actual plants. This collection of so-called anthotype prints contains a forest full of natural colours.
Rovers’ presentation is aimed at inviting visitors to participate, learn, and reflect. They are therefore allowed to take home copies of the prints, complete with information about the depicted plant on the back. However, this should be done according to foraging ethics. Rovers explains: ‘Take what you need, but always leave something for others. If too many people take home a copy of the same print, there will be nothing left, just like in nature.’
Text: Esther Darley
Translated from Dutch by Marie Louise Schoondergang (The Art of Translation)