Ghost Seed
2024
Two-channel 16mm film installation, silent, color, looped
Prints on paper, botanical residues on printed grids sealed between acrylic sheets
Variable dimensions
The installation consists of a two-channel 16mm film projection and two series of prints on paper. The films explore the architecture of the Herbarium at the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid outside working hours, focusing on a supplementary collection of fruits from the historical herbarium, consisting of specimens that have remained unclassified and have not been incorporated into the official collection. The fruits are filmed on rotating mirrored surfaces, in long-duration sequences in which their images overlap and repeat in a loop.
Alongside the films, the installation includes a series of prints documenting dust and plant residues from specimens collected in former colonial territories and preserved in herbarium drawers labelled “Unnamed Fruits.” These botanical remains, estimated to date from between 1800 and 1900, are gradually deteriorating and disintegrating into dust. The particles are transferred onto printed grids and sealed between acrylic sheets, applying procedures of documentation, measurement, and classification to residual materials from the archive itself. Superimposed on this series are reproductions of slides from a botanical expedition to Equatorial Guinea in 1989, drawn from the personal archive of an ethnobotanist at the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid.
Proyecto desarrollado con el apoyo del programa de ayudas a la creación y movilidad del Ayundamiento de Madrid