Conversation in the Garden

by Sabatina Leccia (artist) and Clara Chichin (photographer) in collaboration with Ana Cristina Torres (researcher in ecology and environmental anthropology), is part of a research-creation initiative supported by the ADAGP endowment fund in 2024.

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This multidisciplinary project aims to explore and make visible the intimate relationship between gardeners and nature, highlighting their essential role in the preservation of life, a role that is often overlooked despite its fundamental importance in the current ecological crisis.

The project seeks to rekindle a sensitivity toward the living world in the context of an environmental crisis that affects both ecosystems and the ways in which humans connect to them. It positions itself as a counterpoint to the erosion of attention to nature and biodiversity in contemporary societies.
 

Conversation in the Garden creates a space for interaction between art and scientific research, where the respective approaches mutually enrich each other. The project highlights the possibility of making scientific data—especially ethnographic and archival materials—sensitive, while crafting a narrative form that speaks to a wide audience. This approach aims to make scientific research more accessible and to raise awareness about environmental issues.
 

Focusing on the work of gardeners, this project sheds light on their role as mediators between humans and nature, and their contribution to biodiversity. The Jardin des Plantes in Paris, where Ana Cristina Torres was in residence in 2024, serves as the central site for this reflection. Through portraits of gardeners, the project explores their transformative work with living organisms and how they help create a "common world" with nature.
 

The project builds on an initial corpus of imagery created by Ana Cristina Torres, stemming from her photographic research at the Jardin des Plantes. From these images, anthotype prints were made, a photographic process that uses plants to produce images that are both fragile and poetic. This process symbolizes patience and the intimate relationship with nature, as the images are revealed through exposure to sunlight and weather conditions.

Sabatina Leccia intervened on some of the anthotype prints by adding embroidery, transforming these fragile images into more visible and tangible elements. These embroideries, echoing plant motifs, highlight the hybridization between the human body and nature, illustrating the symbiotic relationship between gardeners and plants.

Since anthotypes are ephemeral images, a conservation process was implemented by scanning the works before they disappear. Some images were then printed on fabric, and Sabatina Leccia continued her artistic interventions by unweaving and embroidering these prints. This conservation and transformation work creates a form of invisible communication between the gardeners' work, the earth, and the plants, while symbolizing the fragility and beauty of the relationship between humans and the living world.
 

Through this co-research-creation process, we hope to contribute to fostering a transformation in both individual and collective behaviors. In this project, the role of the Jardin des Plantes as a place for observing and studying nature is no longer to "advance science, but to understand life in order to create a better common world" – Estelle Zhong Mengal