Anna Laurent on botanical art through history and photographing seeds

Dialogues with Nature

In this episode, Anna Laurent is my guest talking about her work at the intersection of science and art, researching botanical art through history and photographing seeds. She is passionate about

'understanding plants from the plant's perspective and plants from people's perspective'

Anna is an award-winning flora-focused writer, photographer, and artist. She traveled the world, researching the visual history of plant depiction, as well as collecting specimens for 'Dispersal', a series of photographs, portraits, exploring the form and function of seed dispersal.

In our conversation, we delve deeper into the world of seeds and Anna's creative journey, exploring them through photography.

'The reason for a flower is the fruit and the seed. A flower has evolved its form and its scent, its colours to attract pollinators, to produce a seed. And the seeds are really the future of the plant. The seeds are the whole purpose of a plant.'

Her work has exhibited internationally, at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in London, the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard university and the University of California Botanical Gardens at Berkeley, as well as gardens in Amsterdam, Italy, Gibraltar, Sydney, and New York city. In 2018, the Royal Botanic gardens Kew commissioned a series of seed portraits to be permanently displayed alongside living plants in the Temperate House, the largest Victorian glasshouse in the world.

Her first book, Botanical Art from the Golden Age of Scientific Discovery (University of Chicago Press, 2016) examines the art and science of plant biology in 19th century wall charts. We also talk in this podcast episode more in detail about this book she wrote and the role botanical art plays in history, as well as Anna's current research and next book.

Anna was born in Boston, in the USA, and studied at Harvard University. She holds a Master's degree in History and Philosophy of science from the University College of London. Currently, she lives in London and was awarded a UK visa as an Artist of Exceptional Talent.

I first came across Anna's work in 2017 at the Chelsea Flower Show where her seed photographs were exhibited and caught my attention. Later that year, we met at her solo exhibition in London. Then in 2018, both her work and mine were featured in the same issue of INKQ, an independent publication at the intersection of art and science by a mutual friend of ours, Jessica Shepherd.

We recorded this podcast episode in December, 2019, since then a lot has happened in the world, but more significantly earlier this year, back in March, When I approached Anna with my idea to set up Dialogues with Nature Network, she agreed and became one of the Founding Members . It's been wonderful to work together over the past couple of months, setting up this creative support network centred around nature.
I hope you will enjoy listening to this podcast episode we recorded!

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Links from this episode:

• Follow @anna__laurent on instagram
• www.annalaurent.com
• https://harvardmagazine.com/2014/01/the-sorcery-of-seedpods
• https://www.kew.org/read-and-watch/secrets-kew-temperate-house
• https://www.seedcultures.com/#/anna-laurent/

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About Dialogues with Nature Network here.

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The music for the podcast is by Band of Burns ‘Now Westlin' Winds’ song that was recorded live at Union Chapel in 2017. I used this song with the band’s permission.

Follow Band of Burns on instagram here and their website for tour dates is here: https://www.bandofburns.com/