Fragmentin creates a plant archive made of light
The artist collective Fragmentin present Endangered Herbarium, a poetic, thought-provoking artwork that explores endangered local plant species and the future of archiving. Presented as a triptych of transparent blue Plexiglass panels shaped like SD cards, the piece projects delicate plant silhouettes in sunlight, thanks to Rayform’s caustics technology.
Each panel features a different threatened species—Apium nodiflorum (highly endangered), Papaver occidentale (threatened), and Dryopteris cristata (vulnerable)—alongside their Latin names etched into the surface. The blue color of the work pays homage to the cyanotype process used in early botanical photography.
As an echo of the photosynthesis process, the plants follow the suns’s movement, and morph as hours and seasons pass. When the sunlight disappears, either at dusk or covered by clouds, only the engraved names remain—ghostly echoes of life once visible—inviting reflection on extinction, memory, and the fragility of nature.
By mimicking a data storage device, Endangered Herbarium also critiques digital archiving’s environmental cost, raising urgent questions about how we choose to preserve knowledge and what we may lose along the way. This luminous installation invites viewers into a meditative space on climate change, biodiversity, and the impermanence of memory.
© Fragmentin