Botanical | rimbooks

Uprooted, a book of levitating flowers & other fashionable nonsense
by Fiona Lascelles

What if… the internet was soil, what flowers would grow?

A speculative piece of fiction that is part photography, is definitely sci-fi, could be used as a handbook, recants the ordeals of a 1950s plant breeder who grows species given to her from travellers to outer space (found on Wikicommons), performs acts of flower propagation via the active nourishment of words and contains magician’s coding.

Uprooted is a ramble across multiple worlds both real and imagined. At its core a reframing of plant taxonomy from a poetic perspective, entertaining the notion that a poetic understanding of the world is as viable a convention as one of argument and reason.

A process condensing research and readings, visual exploration, observation, curation and creating connections, play and critique; Ursula le Gruin refers to this as composting, a fitting analogy for the creative process. In the end the work became more than poetic fancy, rather a handbook of provocation.

Uprooted is a reflection on what philosopher Donna Harraway would see as a statement on the blurring of species identity politics. The accompanying texts and quotes throughout the book affirm the problem of the hierarchy of being: machine over plant, human over machine. Here, the plant speaks back.

Concept, design, production // Fiona Lascelles

Photography // Fiona Lascelles
AI images created using personal photographs in midjourney and re-edited/composed in Photoshop.
Coding created in codepal.ai and edited.
AI plant names initially generated in fantasynamegenerators.com and re-edited.

170 x 240mm
94 pages
Text // Eco 100% recycled 115gsm
Cover // Screen printed one colour Colorplan Bitter Chocolate 270gsm
End Papers // Eco 100% Recycled 135gsm
Printing // Crucial Colour, Auckland, New Zealand
Perfect bound (handbound) // The Binding Studio, Auckland

Published // back_space_books
Edition of 50

ISBN 978-0-473-73488-6

RRP $80

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worm, root, wort… & bane
by Ann Shelton

Artist Ann Shelton’s latest book, worm, root, wort… & bane delves into the rich history of plant-centric belief systems and their suppression. Part artist scrapbook, part photo book, part quotography, and part exhibition catalogue, this publication explores the medicinal, magical, and spiritual uses of plant materials, once deeply intertwined with the lives of European forest, nomadic, and ancient peoples.

worm, root, wort… & bane re-assembles fragments of historical knowledge alongside the first 19 artworks from Shelton’s photographic series, i am an old phenomenon (2022-ongoing). The plant sculptures photographed are constructed by the artist, who has worked with plants since childhood and long been interested in the history of floral art and its expansive gendered resonances.

Overflowing with 300+ images and quotations, this book traces the loss of plant knowledge held wise women, witches, and wortcunners in post-feudal Europe, as Christianity spread and capitalism emerged. The book follows our changing relationships with plants, through the Victorian era to the present — offering cause to reflect on the consequences of the ongoing estrangement between humans and the natural world.

worm, root, wort… & bane features a multiplicity of voices, reflecting the assorted and sometimes conflicting beliefs that are held about plants, gender, and sexuality. Adopting an intersectional approach, the book quotes historical accounts, herbal advice, folk knowledge, and artist research, and draws from art, literature, film, and television.

The book also features new essays by photographic curator Susan Bright and Victoria Munro, Executive Director of Alice Austen House, as well as The Three Fates, a short story by New Zealand writer Pip Adam, written in response to Ann Shelton’s research.

Ann Shelton, Pākehā/Italian (b. 1967, Aotearoa New Zealand) received her MFA from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. She lives in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, New Zealand and exhibits internationally. Her most recent museum survey, Dark Matter, curated by Zara Stanhope (Director, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, Ngāmotu New Plymouth, Aotearoa New Zealand), was hosted by Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki in 2016 and toured to Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū in 2017. Shelton’s award-winning work has been extensively written about and reviewed in publications including Artforum, Hyperallergic, Journal of New Zealand & Pacific Studies, artnet news, The Art Newspaper, and the Evergreen Review. Her works are included in public and private collections throughout Aotearoa New Zealand and in the United States.

Shelton is Honorary Research Fellow in Photography at Whiti o Rehua, School of Art, Massey University, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa.

Shelton works with Over and Under Fine Art in New York, and Two Rooms in Aotearoa.