All the plants I own, 2021 - ….

UV-print on terracotta plates, 20cm x 30cm

Sarah Van Marcke’s works expose how certain registration systems withhold information from the researcher. During the pandemic, she photographed her own collection of houseplants by the rules of scientific imagery: each plant is photographed separately and centered, outlines are clear, and the background is in a neutral white or light grey color. An examination of the name and origin of her plants revealed a history of colonialism and anthropocentrism. The Latin nomenclature of plants has been hardly updated since the study of the physicist Linnaeus from 1735. We no longer know their indigenous names, nor their medicinal or cultural uses. As the plants assimilated to the cold European soil, we have erased their identity - an analogy with the unequal treatment of colonised, racialised and uprooted persons is inevitable. (Zeynep Kubat)