Sorbus aucuparia L.

 
Sorbus aucuparia L.
 
In 1735, the physician and botanist Carl Linnaeus published the first edition of his work Systema Naturae (“System of Nature”). His system of flora and fauna, completed the inventory process of nature, begun by the ancient Greeks. It also influenced the formation of an anthropocentric view of the world and the idea supported by theorists of modern times that nature is a set of objects surrounding a person suitable exclusively for use and experimental study. In the 17-18 centuries  Still life is also made out in a separate genre and becoming popular. Nature-morte, “dead nature", nature, as an object or construct, enclosed in a framework and intended for admiring from a certain distance.
 
 
Over the course of the year, I watched a tree growing next to my house. The branches of his crown grew to my balcony. The mountain ash, Sorbus aucuparia L. (L. - means the tree was classified by Linnaeus). The daily practice of communicating with the tree grew into a study that I divided according to the Linnaeus principle into three parts, into three kingdoms: the kingdom of minerals, the kingdom of plants and the kingdom animals. To these three kingdoms, I added one more - the "kingdom of culture." It was important for me to realize and fix the visual stereotypes of culture, i.e. the frame that makes me, as a spectator, look at nature as an object. And also to explore the mechanisms as a result of which real nature is replaced by its representation. Using a photograph, I try to understand the problem of “seeing” the world around me and answer the question of whether it is possible to overcome the distance and look at an ordinary tree as something independent, whole, subjective (the Greeks believed that plants have a soul) that can change itself and the world around. Including the observer himself. In my visual diary, I used a variety of optics, including a night observation camera for animals and a microscope. As well as archival photographs and reproductions of European painting of the 17-18 centuries. The project is implemented with the assistance of the Berlin Natural Science Museum (Das Museum für Naturkunde)