In The Shape of Time, American philosopher George Kubler suggests that everything is invented because of human desire, and it was the Victorian desire to collect, catalogue and own exotic plants from the colonies. Glasshouses embody a duality of exoticism in their own innovative forms but also in their role as an incubator and store of foreign fruits; the colonial view of a right to own what belonged elsewhere. They are a physical reminder of the British empire’s world power and imperialism.

Alongside our tutorial readings like ‘My Garden’ by Jamaica Kincaid, a key reference that helped to frame my investigations were the photographs of Bernd & Hilla Becher. Their approach to making photographs mirrors the structured, repetitive formation of the Victorian walled gardens and the glasshouse typology. The Bechers’ work conveys the idea of formalism, and I am making an obvious reference to their work in my style and medium, but my narrative will be different. I hope to convey the idea that the deadpan typology itself isn’t the object in question, it is merely the vessel, the screen, the enclosure of the subjects; my photographs are highlighting the plants within.

Having never engaged with anything larger than 35mm film I was eager to experiment and learn the processes of shooting, developing and printing through the larger format mediums, moving from 120 medium format to 4x5 large format. With large format you really slow down the process of taking a photograph. The camera itself is theoretically a small dark room, filled with a light sensitive sheet waiting for light to expose it through a glass lens. This process is mirrored in the glasshouses I am photographing, housing light sensitive plants that grow as they are exposed to light that penetrates the glass structure. Both processes rely on light as the catalyst for production.