Artistic research of the project "Memories of Plants" using phytography: an organic method of creating photographs

While in recent years the direction of the author's creative topics is focused on memory, time and war, the artistic research performed during the internship will be the basis for the emergence of new art works. During the implementation of the project alternative organic photographic processes will be used. One of the main ones is anthotype (chlorophyll photo print), when photographic images are created using plants or the juice of their leaves. Dovilė Dagienė works with organic photographic processes and creates images by using phytography (Greek phyton - plant, grapho - write) – chlorophyll photo prints. In the author's works, which are part of the photographic series “Plant Memory”, plant leaves are used as material onto which archival photographs of Lithuanian citizens are transferred. The photographs show reflections of past lives found in the archives of the Vilna Gaon Museum of Jewish History and in other (such as Yad Vashem) archives . Like leaves fallen from trees, such photographs roamed the courtyards and streets in the territory of the Vilnius ghetto following its liquidation. The shadows of the painful past, unfulfilled destinies and dreams look at us from the framed leaves of the plants. Plants thus become distinctive monuments of time and memory.

“The idea of printing photographs on plants came to my mind while I was working on the topic of plant memory. This was my study examining Jewish culture and cultural heritage. While working on it I came across the story of the botanist Jakub Mowszovicz and through that I came to the subject of plants. Mowszowicz was a botanist of Jewish origin who worked at Vilnius (Vilna) University. Before the war he defended his dissertation on the flora of Paneriai meadows. During the war the young botanist Mowszowicz had to hide in the botanical garden. I have found some testimonies and stories that during the war he brought Jewish children from ghetto to the botanical garden. It seemed important to him to show those children the garden and plants, as if to allow them to recover from the horror of that war. This story inspired me to search the archives of children’s faces. That relationship between a plant and a child is common in our culture. We often talk about children as flowers, as plants, as something that grows into the future. And here we face the horror of the war that stops that growth... And stops lives...” – said the author.

This project has received funding from the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT), agreement No. S-PD-22-75.