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Spanish artist Almudena Romero knew she loved plants from a young age: "I must have been four or five years old. When my grandmother called and asked, 'What do you want for your birthday?' I said, 'An olive tree.'"
Now she exhibits her unique plant-based art in London (Saatchi Gallery) and Paris (Albert Khan Museum), encouraging the public to question their hyper-consumerism and showing that it is possible to create art in an environmentally friendly way.
In her four-chapter series called "The Pigment Change" she does not develop her photographs on photo paper, but prints them directly onto plants.
"I just put a negative on the leaf and leave it in the sunlight, and then the image is recorded on the leaf," Romero said. "But I also print on living plants using a digital projector, and the plant photosynthesizes with the light from the projector and records an image."
In a chapter from that series, called "Family Album," she spreads watercress seeds on a stretched canvas and lets them grow in the dark, before projecting a negative onto the watercress.
"The parts that receive more light produce chlorophyll, hence the dark green hues, and the parts that receive less light remain yellow and light," she said.[It's] exactly like a photographic darkroom. But instead of an enlarger I have a projector, and my watercress canvas is my photographic paper. That's how I grow photographs."
The chlorophyll process used by Almudena was popularized in the 1990s by Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey, who projected photographs onto grass using a negative and light from a projector lamp. The British artists reportedly came up with the technique after seeing random outlines of a ladder cast onto one of their grass installations.
Although it was an innovative process, it was not easy. It required a lot of space and preparation. Later, artist Binh Danh improved this method by using light-sensitive materials from plants, fixing a positive right into a leaf, and letting sunlight bleach the photo on the surface.
Learning from plants
Romero, who grew up in Madrid, spent her holidays on her grandparents' avocado farm in Valencia, in eastern Spain. Breathing fresh air, picking fruit and learning about plants from her grandmother during her formative years instilled in her the eco-conscious values she embraces today.
"When you grow close to nature, it becomes a very important thing in your life," she said. "Plants are important to me partly because of my family heritage and because as photographic material it is impressive in quality."
But she admits her eco-friendly techniques wouldn't work for all artists. "It's a niche because it's ephemeral pieces, so it's much harder to be financially sustainable if your art is ephemeral, but I think it also depends on how you understand life and what you want to do with your practice," she explained.
The 38-year-old isn't alone in her love of plants. According to a study published by consumer analytics platform CivicScience, more than 200 million Americans owned houseplants in 2020. In recent years, millennials have embraced the "plant parent" craze, sharing photos and care tips on social media. But for Romero, plants are much more than something to care for-they're creatures we can learn from.
"Plants are [around] "They've been on the planet much longer than we have, and they've managed to do it without causing any extinctions," she said.
Romero points to plants in deserts and arid environments that have evolved strategies to limit reproduction, saying this helps her argue that choosing to remain childless is not "unnatural behavior." "I'm a person who doesn't want to have children because of climate change," she explained. "I just don't feel comfortable with it."
In her series "The Pigment Change" she asks whether motherhood or parenthood is something "beyond one's control" or a "matter of will". She reflects on the selective reproductive strategies of plants and opens up a broader reflection on reproduction.
In 2020, she won the BMW Residency Award for this project and her work was exhibited at the renowned photo festival Rencontres d'Arles in France.
However, it is not just about what we can learn from plants. For the Spaniard, we must also consider non-anthropocentric ethics (a philosophical perspective that challenges the idea that humans are the most important beings, and emphasizes the value of all living organisms and ecosystems), where other species have their own agendas and intentionality.
The artist explained that she sees photoperiodism (the way plants respond and adapt to changes in light throughout the seasons) as a performance of plants. "Why do we think that we only have these capacities as humans?" Romero said. "The problem is the perspective that we have that we think we are very different until science proves otherwise."
Research has shown that plants can be more complex than we think. According to an article in The Plant Journal, plants like Arabidopsis feel stressed when they are touched, which stunts their growth, while another research group found in 2019 that beach evening primrose responds to the sound of pollinators.
Romero is currently working on her next project, which is expected to be completed in June 2025. The work was commissioned by the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment and is expected to be larger than a stadium.
"I'm working on the farming of what will be the largest photographic artwork ever. We're going to farm a 30,000 square meter image," she said.
Romero is working with scientist Nicolas Langlade to use AI to create a color palette rich enough to produce a distinctive image from genetically different wheat and grass varieties.
The artwork reflects on the human relationship with land and plants, our impact on the environment and our interdependence on nature. For Romero, this art-science project is like coming full circle. "It's a combination of my family's background, because we're going to grow it," she said. "I love my passion for plant photography, so I'm really excited about it."
" Metamorphosis" can be seen at the Saatchi Gallery in London until July 28.
"Living nature" can be seen at the Albert Khan Museum in Paris until December 31.For more CNN news and newsletters, create an account at CNN.com
