A succulent affair - part 1
photographed at Kew gardens, london
in collaboration with Kew Gardens
part 1 - Unearthing the roots
part one of A Succulent Affair traces the entangled life of succulents within European archives, herbaria, and greenhouses—spaces where knowledge about plants has long been collected, controlled and commodified.
Focusing on specific endangered Cape Floral Kingdom’s succulents, the project examines how botanical science, photography, and imperial ambition converged to shape the foundations of today’s multi- billion, global succulent industry.
“The global succulent plant market is valued at approximately $7 billion.”
Shot entirely in the UK, this phase explores the research and scientific life of the plant—its transformation into specimen, data point, and collectible.
By working inside Kew’s research units, and with Kew’s scientists the project reflects on how imperial-era knowledge systems continue to inform contemporary plant economies, where living species are traded both legally and illegally, tracked, and technologised across digital platforms.
This is a portrait of the succulent as seen through the eyes of Empire, industry, and algorithm—a resource to be owned, ordered, and sold.
In the Company of Succulents - part 2
In part Two, a Succulent Affair returns the succulent plant to its native context in South Africa’s Western Cape—moving beyond its framing as ornamental object, commodity or scientific specimen.
here we shift from the institutional gaze to an immersive, land-based engagement, where the succulent can be encountered as a living presence with agency, memory, and ecological intelligence.
As the Botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer writes,“The story of our relationship to the Earth is written more truthfully on the land than it is on the page.”
Working collaboratively with local scientists, artists, and the land itself, part 2 of the project explores how story, art, and science might converge to help us make sense of ecological crisis—and imagine more reciprocal ways of living with the more-than-human world.
a Succulent Affair aims to translate what is often abstracted or archived into felt, embodied experiences—through image, sound, pigment, and situated practice.
Ultimately, the project asks how we might shift from extractive ways of knowing to relational ones—from data to dialogue, from classification to kinship.
Phase Two is currently in development.
Early research and dialogue are underway, shaping a more grounded, land-based approach.
For further information or collaboration enquiries,
contact nat
“Let us not flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each such victory, nature takes its revenge on us. Each victory, it is true, in the first place brings about the results we expected, but in the second and third places it has quite different, unforeseen effects which only too often cancel the first”
Marx and Engels 1987, vol. 25, 460–1
