WHITEWASHED BOTANY

October, 2021 - June, 2022

With the support of UCLA Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden, Whitewashed Botany serves as Plants and Culture’s first educational exhibit and an intro into botany’s buried past.

Referencing institutional display and storage, metal cases serve as a repository, housing quotes, prints, and objects stripped of their original context. Unlike most botanical displays, plants that have long been collected, cataloged, and capitalized on are shown beside images of peoples whose labor and contributions are rarely acknowledged within scientific circles. Elements are linked using specimen tape, signifying ownership and the inextricable connection between natural history, big business, and colonialism.

By confronting our past and the history of science, my hope is to foster deeper criticality so we may better address our present and our future. May this exhibit be part of a much larger conversation…

Special thanks to Jules Cooch, Terry Huang, Anthony Baniaga, Jeremy Pellington, Shane Coburn, Larry Douziech, Faye Nahm (Sarvodaya Nursery), and UCLA Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden.