King Penguin Books - An Artistic Response 25th March - 30th August, 2024
Oxford Brookes University Special Collections possesses an important collection of approximately 10,000 Penguin books collated by Steve Hare and recently loaned to the collection by his widow Alison Hare. Within the collection is the King Penguin series, from which I have selected three books published between 1940 and 1950, which focus on botany and ecology.
The project seeks to highlight this beautiful collection to library visitors, whilst also re- viewing the status of these plants in the face of the climate crisis and biodiversity loss we are experiencing today. I have created spherical ceramic capsules representing seeds and three mini-books com- prising new illustrations of the plant species described in the books, alongside explanatory texts on how these plants are distributed and their conservation status in England today.
During the project I'conducted archival work in Brookes Special Collections, as well as in the Herbaria in the Faculty of Biology, University of Oxford, where I observed dried plant specimens, botanical illustration books, and plant conservation atlases.
My intention within the project is to explore the relationship between plants and books,
nature and information, and by reimagining the King Penguin books through a contemporary and creative lens my work also aims to examine the changing character of nature, illustration, and books across time.
Aseed is like a book in many ways. Both are capsules for information and carry within them a unique potential. This information and potential may lead to, in the case of a seed, a future
plant, or in the case of a book, new thoughts transmitted to the mind of the reader lead to other forms of growth."
This project was produced as part of the Professional Experience module of the Master of Fine Arts programme at Brookes and with support from Oxford Brookes Special Collections.
Further information about the Steve Hare Penguin Collection can be found here:
https://www.brookes.ac.uk/library/co- llections/special-collections/publishing-and-literary-prizes/steve-hare-penguin-collection
Read more: https://luciana-solar.blogspot.com/
