Botanizing on the Asphalt
Cyanotype, 57 x 38 cm, 2015
The installation Botanizing on the Asphalt is a site-specific work created for Survival K(n)it Festival, Riga, Latvia. The installation is a collection of cyanotypes depicting discarded objects collected on walks in the streets surrounding the former National library where the 2015 festival is held Buhl’s project takes an outset in Walter Benjamin’s description of the urban wanderer as one “who goes botanizing on the asphalt” and the work of the 19th century British botanist and photographer Anna Atkins. Atkins extensively catalogued British algae in her publication “Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions”. It is considered the first book illustrated with photographic images. And some argue that Atkins was the first woman to create a photograph. Weaving together Benjamin’s notion, Atkins’ technique and traces from the library area, Botanizing on the Asphalt captures a moment in time before the objects are again scattered, whirling into new directions. Buhl thinks of the work as a herbarium, but unlike the classical herbarium, her contains both man-made and organic objects.
Artist's Bios:
Nanna Debois Buhl is a visual artist living and working in Copenhagen and New York. She participated in The Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program, New York (2008-09) and received her M.F.A. from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (2006). Her installations and films have been exhibited widely, recently at Pérez Art Museum, FL; Sculpture Center, NY; Art in General, NY; The Studio Museum, Harlem, NY; El Museo del Barrio, NY; Lunds Konsthall, Sweden; Kunsthallen Brandts; Museum for Contemporary Art, Roskilde; and Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Denmark.