Travels and Adventures of the Orchid Hunter (Flora in the Garden of Eden)
2025
This photography yields to the temptation of reducing being to representation — a domain from which the being escapes, withdrawing to a space beyond the visible. It exists in another realm, driven by a force that refuses to be subordinated to representation’s logic. Thus, the gaze is left disoriented, unsure where to rest.
*Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The extensions of man (1964)
Martin Kemp, Sex and Science in Robert Thornton’s Temple of Flora (2015) on Public Domain Review
«See, I love you.
But love is a feeling we can experience,
but never explain».
Andrei Tarkovsky, Solaris (1972)
But love is a feeling we can experience,
but never explain».
Andrei Tarkovsky, Solaris (1972)
Orchid hunting is a risky business. In 1891, Albert Millican wrote:
«Having fully made up my mind for a long sea-voyage, and taken my ticket for anywhere and everywhere beyond the seas,
I provided myself with a stock of knives, cutlasses, revolvers, rifle, an overflowing supply of tobacco and newspapers,
and started on the third Saturday of the eight month of Her Majesty Queen Victoria’s Jubilee year».
«Having fully made up my mind for a long sea-voyage, and taken my ticket for anywhere and everywhere beyond the seas,
I provided myself with a stock of knives, cutlasses, revolvers, rifle, an overflowing supply of tobacco and newspapers,
and started on the third Saturday of the eight month of Her Majesty Queen Victoria’s Jubilee year».
Albert Millican, Travels and Adventures of an Orchid Hunter (1891)
Countless have gone missing in the most remote tropical regions of the planet.
Many were struck down by fever and dysentery; some fell victim to wild predators.
At least one was doused in oil and burned alive—or so they say.
Orchid hunting is a near-impossible task. But this is not that story.
It speaks neither of botany nor brave explorers.
Nor of the quiet violence of colonialism, veiled behind the march of white men,
eager to seize all they see—by land or by sea—in the noble name of science.
Many were struck down by fever and dysentery; some fell victim to wild predators.
At least one was doused in oil and burned alive—or so they say.
Orchid hunting is a near-impossible task. But this is not that story.
It speaks neither of botany nor brave explorers.
Nor of the quiet violence of colonialism, veiled behind the march of white men,
eager to seize all they see—by land or by sea—in the noble name of science.
This story is about something the wise minds of our time can’t even begin to conceive.
Something that, in its way, remains beyond the reach of science: love.
As Roland Barthes notes in La chambre claire:
Something that, in its way, remains beyond the reach of science: love.
As Roland Barthes notes in La chambre claire:
«Au reste,
combien me déplaît ce parti scientifique, de
traiter la famille comme si elle était uniquement un tissu
de contraintes et
de rites: ou bien on la code comme un groupe d’appartenance immédiate, ou bien on en fait un nœud de conflits et de refoulements.
On dirait que nos savants ne peuvent concevoir qu’il y a des familles “où l’on s’aime”».
de rites: ou bien on la code comme un groupe d’appartenance immédiate, ou bien on en fait un nœud de conflits et de refoulements.
On dirait que nos savants ne peuvent concevoir qu’il y a des familles “où l’on s’aime”».
Roland Barthes, La chambre claire. Notes sur la photographie (1980)
A work of fiction, built on real footage, and rooted in love.