New Publication - "Flora Fantastic: From Orchidelirium to Eco-Critical Contemporary Botanical Art"

My Co-Editor, Corina L. Apostol, and myself are delighted to share that we are embarking on a book project together entitled "Flora Fantastic: From Orchidelirium to Eco-Critical Contemporary Botanical Art".

The book will be published by Routledge and is due out in late 2022. Working from global perspectives of Europe, the United States, South-East Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean our book considers indigenous and imported plants as active agents in colonial history, through the lens of visual culture both past and present. "Flora Fantastic" provides an unexpected perspective on questions researched both within academic and art discourse, based on unique stories in the history of colonial botany, and highlighting versatile artistic forms that highlight complex relationships between East, West, and South in the 20th century and how those ramifications manifest in the present-day.

By engaging contemporary artists’ visual and political engagement with botanical legacies and environmental conditions globally and highlighting theoretical, political, and cultural developments—our book will offer a significant contribution to the intersecting fields of art history, botany, visual culture, decolonial studies, and environmental politics, during a time when such cultural strategies and proposals are urgently needed.