Botanica

Botanica photo series was inspired by the Montpellier Botanical Garden of France, one of the oldest garden of Europe. I was fascinated when I heard about the garden herbarium, a 6 km long archive of plants, seeds, flowers, petals of more than 300 years old. This amazing herbarium archive showcases multiple nature treasures such as extincted plants and faded away species.
I imagined this timeless garden through a series of color photograms making living elements coexist with those that have disappeared. The elements collected from nature are diverse and varied, I am interested in their colors, their shapes, their textures, their scents. Smaller components like pollen, pistils, seeds, but also petals, flowers, leaves and branches were photographed, sometimes alone, sometimes by assembling them into sorts of bouquets arranged according to their structures, their nuances or their forms. Other times, I have left the elements to macerate on the photo paper in order to capture their essence. Botanica is a sort of journey between the past and the present in a timeless garden imagined on photo paper. An hommage that highlights nature past forms and presents time who passed.

Christelle Boulé is a Canadian-Swiss artist and photographer. She graduated with a Master of Photography from the prestigious art school ECAL/University of Art and Design in Lausanne (Switzerland).