[Winter 2024]

Urban Intrusion
By Julie Martin

[Excerpt]

Here, petals in subtle variations of red. There, the intricately traced veins of a leaf. Elsewhere, delicate yellow stamens; and farther on, a clean green sepal and half-open cottony buds. In her series Nouvelles espèces de compagnie, produced in 2017 for a commission from the city of Bordeaux, Suzanne Lafont deploys a collection of photographs of flowers.¹ Pressed, isolated on a neutral background, topped by texts, they are presented in a visual arrangement that evokes an herbarium or, with their striking details, botanical illustrations.

Far from producing a taxonomy of particularly noteworthy, little-known, or rare specimens, Lafont photographs self-propagating plants. In other words, she turns her eyes, and ours, to plants that resist the concrete pavements of urban spaces: unexpected guests, they slip into the cracks of sidewalks, taking advantage of specks of soil and managing to flourish without being cared for. She strives to make these plants, which were not cultivated for aesthetic pleasure – in fact, we know them as “weeds” – not only visible but resplendent…

[ Complete issue, in print and digital version, available here: Ciel variable 125 – AGGLOMERATIONS ]
[ Complete article, in digital version, available here: Suzanne Lafont, Nouvelles espèces de compagnie — Julie Martin, Urban Intrusion ]