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Winter – Bud Blast

All the aborted flower buds collected from one rhododendron shrub during the winter of 2020/21, dissected and photographed.

Shedden Clough Limestone Hushings, Worsthorne Moor

The South Pennines, England, UK

2020-2023

Winter-Bud Blast as a photo-audio installation in the exhibition Field Studies-Land Body Botany at the Bath House Galleries, the University of Huddersfield, 2023. The pages in the box set are displayed on the walls while the composion by Monty Adkins can be listened to through the headphones. 

 

Winter-Bud Blast is a journey of self-reflection through the act of dissecting 75 aborted rhododendron buds. They were all the aborted buds collected from one shrub in the winter of 2020.  The process generated 75 photographic prints, each print documents the dissected parts of one bud, photographed as how they were opened onto the rice paper. All prints are life-size of the buds themselves.

The prints are contained inside a clamshell style box covered in Japanese Mohair book cloth with a blue paper lining. A rhododendron bud set in clear resin is inset into the front cover allowing the bud to be seen from outside and inside. Additional blue coloured pages are foil blocked in white with additional information about the work. The title is foil blocked using two different foils and combines ground buds within the foil.

The book measures at: 330mm (H)*230mm(W)*65mm(D).

In an exhibition, the work can be shown as a photo-audio installation, as seen above.

The video here attempts to present the book as a film piece.