This exhibition explores our relationships with the plant world, and the ways in which plants become in turn objects of affection thanks to their aesthetic qualities, emblems of environmental upheaval, or perform symbolic functions. The Parc des Bastions became in 1817 Geneva’s first botanical garden, on the initiative of Augustin Pyramus de Candolle. He was the author of one of the first botanical classifications, and undertook a vast project that led to the description of nearly 60,000 plants. The notions of study and of typology similarly permeate the entire history of photography. From Anna Atkins’ cyanotypes of algae to Karl Blossfeldt’s enlargements of plants and Niki Simpson’s contemporary botanical illustrations, plant studies and typologies abound. Since the 1840s, photographers have made major contributions to the development of botanical knowledge, and to our visual culture of the plant world.

Echoing the history of the park, this exhibition features two contemporary botanical and artistic studies, one an intimate narrative and exploration of mother-daughter relations and the other one a research and reflection on invasive species. This is a satellite exhibition to the exhibition of the same name at Espace Ami-Lullin in the Bibliothèque de Genève. It was designed by Onlab Studio.