02.1 Methods of cataloguing

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< collection selected: Harvard Digital Library, Botanical drawings, Clemenz Heinrich Wehdemerann drawing of plants collected at Cape Town >

I’ve decided to select this collection to work with because I like the aesthetic of botanical drawing, finding them really neat, detailed, and elegant.

the collection

1. studying the collection…

investigation of the collection.

Main things that caught my attention:
– plants appear like floating
– use of colours
– centered on the page
– level of details + textures
– no background/no context
– all have different shapes, as they are all different plants
– all from the same city
– all from the same book
– texture of the paper

2. ideas of experiments

3. experiments

categorised by colours, then arrange each colour nuances to be followed by another nuance group that has a link with the previous.
zoomed in crops focusing on the different textures > does the texture help having a new understanding of the collection? Does it help to take away from the initial subject to create a new one?
creating a shape for each plant, simplifying the plant to its maximum > what can these shapes represent if you don’t know the collection?

4. feedback

  • exp3 – almost have a scientific nature/ it removes all the details of the plant and it becomes more about the form of the plant than the plant itself
  • look is botanical drawing is still a thing
  • look into the idea of flatness? – like flowers compressed in a book
  • all the experiments are like a timeline
  • exp2 – explore amore critical aspect
  • the fact that in the original collection the plants have no context to them link to exp3
  • take the silouhette and put them in an environement?
  • look at the ‘in between’ each silouhette > create a shape that will be the step between 2 silouhettes – look at the shape missing
  • categorise the silouhettes in a lot of different ways eg: size, form…
  • exp1 > remembers of tarot cards – look into teh meaning and uses of the plants – metaphor of meaning
  • look at the environement of each plant – the wider context
  • look at the notion of time? blossoming // drawing // growth
  • explore animationor motion with the silouhette ?
  • use only the outline of the silouhette and then ask ppl to draw what they think the shape represent > then categorise depending on the result?

5. reflection +next

  • focus on exp3 and the silouhette
  • explore the ‘in between’ of each shapes after categorising then in different ways
  • try to categorise them in different ways and then ask people what they see from it > idea would be to end with completely different object/drawing in order to create a new set, a new collection to categorise and see what comes from it
  • still look more in the context of the plants

recap would be:
1. categorise the shapes in different ways
2. create all the ‘missing shapes’ from all the different categorising I’ve created
3. Pick one or two to then just outline and ask people what they see
4. create a new set and re-categorise it
5. find a way to display it