I explore how a historic image archive can be re-worked through collaborative artistic-scientific practice, and how photography can be ‘re-performed’ as a strategy to observe an environmental change. The focus is on a project by the photographer Chrystel Lebas, who between 2011 and 2017 worked in collaboration with botanists from the Natural History Museum, London. The collaborators used historic and contemporary photographs for seasonal observations in the field. Their specific interest was in the potential for using historic visual ecological records to investigate environmental change as observed now.
The paper explores the hybridization of technical, aesthetic and embodied knowledge, the application of montage and the tacit creation of a visual framework for observation. It draws attention to the potential inflexibility in interpretation inherent in the accepted systematic practice of placing ecological records within a herbarium in a natural history collection. Secondly, it illustrates the neglected potential of photographic collections within scientific research.
BleichmarD.2011. “The Geography of Observation: Distance and Visibility in Eighteenth Century Botanical Travel.” In Histories of Scientific Observation, edited by L. Daston & E. Lunbeck. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
2.
BleichmarD.2012. “Learning to Look: Visual Expertise Across Art and Science in Eighteenth-Century France.” Eighteenth-Century Studies46 (1): 85–111. doi: 10.1353/ecs.2012.0084
3.
BurkeE.2008. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. edited by PhillipsA., (New edition). Oxford: Oxford Paperbacks.
4.
ChakrabartyD.2009. “The Climate of History: Four Theses.” Critical Inquiry35 (2): 197–222. doi: 10.1086/596640
5.
ClaphamA. R.1980. “Edward James Salisbury. 16 April 1886–10 November 1978.” Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society26: 502–541. doi: 10.1098/rsbm.1980.0014
6.
CraryJ.1990. Techniques of the Observer: on Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
7.
DastonL., and LunbeckE., eds. 2011. Histories of Scientific Observation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
8.
EdwardsE., and MortonC.. 2015. “Between Art and Information: Introduction.” In Photographs, Museums, Collections: Between Art and Information, 3–23. London: Bloomsbury.
9.
GibsonJ. J.1979. The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
HolschbachS.2010. “Geländer für die Durchquerung eines unsicheren Terrains. Neue Publikationen zu Theorie und Bildlichkeit der Fotografie.” Zeitschrift Für Medienwissenschaft3 (2): 136–140. doi: 10.1524/zfmw.2010.0025
12.
KohlerR. E.2002. Landscapes and Labscapes: Exploring the Lab-Field Border in Biology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
13.
KuklickH., and KohlerR.. 1996. Science in the Field. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
14.
LatourB.1987. Science in Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
LebasC.2017. Chrystel Lebas: Field Studies. Walking Through Landscapes and Archives. Amsterdam: Fw:Books.
17.
MahonyM.2015. “Climate Change and the Geographies of Objectivity: The Case of the IPCC's Burning Embers Diagram.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers40 (2): 153–167. doi: 10.1111/tran.12064
18.
MitchellW. J. T.2002. “Showing Seeing: A Critique of Visual Culture.” Journal of Visual Culture1 (2): 165–181. doi: 10.1177/147041290200100202
19.
MitmanG., and WilderK. E., eds. 2016. Documenting the World: Film, Photography, and the Scientific Record. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
20.
NordstromA.2007. “Reconsidering Atget.” In Paris Changing. Revisiting Eugène Atget's Paris, 14–16. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.
21.
OutramD.1996. “New Spaces in Natural History.” In The Cultures of Natural History, edited by JardineN., SecordJ. A., and SparyE. C., 249–265. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
22.
SalisburyE. J.1940. “Ecological Aspects of Plant Taxonomy.” In The New Systematics, edited by HuxleyJ., 329–340. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
23.
SchafferS.2009. “Indiscipline and Interdiscipline: Some Exotic Genealogies of Modern Knowledge.” Journal of the History of Astronomy40: 275–380.
24.
SheailJ.2004, November 20. The Vegetation Photographs of A. G. Tansley: A Contents List. London: British Ecological Society.
SpencerM.2017. “Natural History Collections and Connecting People with the Reality of Environmental Change.” In Chrystel Lebas. Field Studies. Walking Through Landscapes and Archives, edited by LebasC., 160–164. Amsterdam: Fw:Books.
27.
WeizmanE., and WeizmanI.. 2013. Before and After. Documenting the Architecture of Disaster. London: Strelka Press.
28.
WellsL.2011. Land Matters. Landscape Photography, Culture and Identity. London: I.B. Tauris.
29.
WilderK. E.2009. Photography and Science. London: Reaktion.
