The anthotype uses plantbased ink sensitive to light, distillated out of plants, weeds and flowers. They got lightened for weeks/months by sunlight until the image tinted into the paper. They slowly destroy themselves using the same light that made them visible, until they dissolve into a vague memory and complete a circular process. This project is a research together with the seasons, forests and layers of earth to find the right plant for the right purpose. Looking for the right plants, teaches you how to look at plants, how to determine them, to name and to connect them in a bigger biotic system.

This technique was started by Henry August Vogel in 1816 and detailed and claimed (by publication) by Sir John Herschal. In all that time Mary Somerville was doing extensive research on light sensitive plant and vegetable emulsions, because women couldn’t publish Herschal added her findings to his publications on the anthotype.

In october 1833 Henry Fox Talbot wrote about the desire to invent a process which could fixate optical images. It was only in 1839 that this act succeeded, which started the birth of photography as a term and invention. In the meanwhile all photographic images disappeared by the light that constructed them.

To take leave is a duoshow with Bram Dejonghe.
DMW Gallery           Antwerp, 2018
09 March - 29 April 2018

Anthotypes, various plant based photographs, different sizes