Michael Wang. Holoflora, 2024
Pigment prints and silver halide holograms; 12 artworks.
“Holoflora names a series of artworks that tell the story of Birmingham’s vanished flora. Each work documents a location in Birmingham, as it appears today, where an individual plant species was last recorded within the present city limits. Floating within each photograph is a spectral image of the lost plant, reconstructed as a virtual botanical model. These images are holograms–a photographic technology that was invented in the West Midlands by the physicist Dennis Gabor.
Some species represented, like the fly orchid, haven’t been seen in Birmingham for over a hundred years. Others, like the orange foxtail, were recorded just a few decades ago. Many species disappeared as the environment changed–as woodlands were cleared and fens drained. A few species have always been uncommon in the region. The title of each work includes the species’ common and scientific names and the location and year of its last observation in Birmingham.”
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