Ann Shelton, Plants and parts of plants
Opening 5pm, Thursday 12 June
Ann Shelton’s Plants and parts of plants is the second iteration in her ongoing photographic series i am an old phenomenon. These richly layered works continue Shelton’s investigation into suppressed plant-based knowledge systems, particularly those held by women, witches, and wortcunners—figures historically persecuted for their understanding of nature, medicine, and reproduction.
Three approaches anchor the early constructions in this body of work: the aerial, the earthbound, and the submerged. Plants are suspended, laid across horizontal planes, or immersed in liquid—each mode charged with symbolism. The aerial suggests flight, transformation, and the spectral figure of the witch; the earthbound evokes the bench or forest floor as a site of labour and knowledge; the submerged gestures toward witches’ brews, submerged pedagogy, and the literal drowning of women accused of witchcraft.
In this second iteration, new elements appear: flames, scorched arrangements, and the body itself. Some works burn, others incorporate human presence, expanding the ritualistic and alchemical tenor of the series. These shifts deepen the project’s exploration of rupture and reassembly, resistance and erasure.
Shelton's constructed plant-based tableaux—meticulously staged and photographed—are not botanical studies but mnemonic devices. They reference ancient systems of belief forcibly displaced by Christianity and capitalism, and ask what knowledge might still be recovered through an embodied engagement with plants.
Visually sumptuous and conceptually charged, Plants and parts of plants continues Shelton’s longstanding commitment to feminist reappraisal, photographic precision, and the deep time of plants. It is both an act of mourning and an invocation: calling back what has been buried, burned, or banished.
