A Collaboration with Kew Gardens

Focussing specifically on the Cape Floral Kingdom’s succulents, A Succulent Affair is a mixed media project that entangles the succulent and its living environment with colonial plant ownership, imperial collecting and the cyberspace systems that keep the market profitable.

This project holds a mirror up to the ever-present cycle of botanical fashionable firsts and exotic plant ownership.

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Fads and trends in plants are as old as the economy of botany, with technological advances working alongside industry to find new and profitable ways to sustain the market demands and control natural resources.

One of these technologies is photography, which, since its inception has been utilised to document, categorise and exoticize nature. During lockdown, houseplants had a massive resurgence with succulents topping the international market as the latest must-have botanical. The succulent plant market doubled in two years and is projected to reach £6.82 Billion by 2027 (Verified Market Research, 2021).

These exoticized, living ornaments are now either mass-produced or are in-demand collectables. Instagram is flooded with images of plant babies and Marketplace and Etsy have sellers propagating from cuttings. Micropropagation labs are cultivating in test tubes which high streets sell for as little as £1. As plants enter the high streets, true collectors seek more unique species.

The global trade in endangered and rare plants is considered one of the world’s largest criminal sectors with some succulents selling on the web for thousands of pounds. (FloraGuard report 2020).

Technology and botany are linked in a cat and mouse game of selling and tracking, finding and protecting, geotagging and AI mapping. The media is feasts on the plant poaching story and often links it to fad loving millennials and the digital age, yet this reductive. Fads are not separate from culture and from those who create and track the platforms that sustain them. And they are not separate from history.

Fads, trends and tech need context. It is important to remember the role of imperial botanical collectors and to scrutinise the systems that are creating the systems to safeguard nature. And to look at who is profiting, controlling, owning and who is not.

I am making a picture is a year-long cross-cultural dialogue between two schools, one in a small countryside village in Germany and one in a large inner city area in South Africa. A group of 16 to 18-year-old students from each school apply to be part of the project where they delve into concepts of decolonization and stereotypical imagery. They break down their preconceptions and find common ground.

I was brought into this project as the South African facilitator along with 2 social workers, another photographer, and a multimedia specialist. We collaborated with the school in Delft to encourage students to explore their communities and identities.

Being brought onto the WeTopia project as a documentary maker and photo facilitator has been one of my highlights.

GIRLS MAKE THE CITY is a Wetopia Project with a regenerative development approach, executed under the custodianship of Open Design Afrika and in collaboration with other Wetopian partners in Cape Town.

Teen Photo-Workshop delving into the basics of photography from lighting to framing, from shutter speed to ISO. As with all As We Are photo workshops, skills are learned through the lens of exploration of identity and community.

Projects build from one week to the next encouraging investigation and discussion about how we connect to our immediate and larger communities. Collaborating with a social worker throughout the course, this beginner photography workshop focuses on teenagers giving them space to voice their own narratives.

GAS FROM TRASH

Coastal Park Landfill, South Africa: Extracting Gas from Trash

Commissioned stills photographer: News24 / Content Lounge

On the edge of paradise, surrounded by a protected marine nature reserve, lies a landfill with up to 800 trucks of general waste arriving daily. My head pounds as I climb the mountains of trash. My throat aches too, breathing in the noxious gasses.

I was expecting to leave this site feeling pure disgust but here amongst the filth, life prospers. Plants creep through, birds nest and feed their young and amongst this all, a team of dedicated scientists work daily to turn our trash into renewable energy.

50% of the gas that is released from this site is methane; a greenhouse gas that is partially responsible for global warming. This landfill has been piped with vertical and horizontal wells to suck and then pump the gas into a flaring facility where it is burnt and converted into stored electricity.

Peter Novella, Manager of Disposal for the City of Cape Town says “Essentially the train of waste coming from your home to a landfill is being used to make renewable energy, reducing the city’s reliance on fossil fuels.”

ST JAMES PICCADILLY

St James Church, Piccadilly, London

A collaboration with this famous historical landmark built by Sir Christopher Wren in the 1680s, exploring its architecture, spirituality, arts, and inclusivity; making it a unique space for diversity and acceptance in central London.