Jennifer Steensma Hoag

Botanica consists of three sets of photographic images (Contingent Existence, Photogenic Traces, and Deconstructed Panoramas) that considers the visuals that humans make to understand, appreciate, and communicate about the natural world. Botanica was on display at the Center Art Gallery at Calvin University from November 14, 2022 through January 30, 2023. I gratefully acknowledge that production of the artwork in this exhibit was made possible through a sabbatical leave provided by Calvin University.

Contingent Existence is a place-based, environmentally themed, collaborative project. I approached naturalist and environmental educator, Jeanette Henderson, to collaborate on a new project idea. Henderson identified and sourced local non-native species and created floral arrangements that I transformed into photographic images inspired by Northern Renaissance still life paintings. During the Renaissance, the discovery of new continents shifted the European perspective. Plant and animal specimens were collected through increased trade across oceans and entire continents. There was a fascination with the unusual and exotic, and an interest in leveraging plants for medicinal use and economic opportunity. The Northern Renaissance still life paintings often had allegories of mortality (skulls, candles, and hourglasses) and morality (the futility of earthly pleasures). The presence of nature enforced that life passes away – flowers wither, birds die. The non-native species in Contingent Existence were intentionally brought to North America to fulfill aesthetic, medicinal, culinary, and landscaping needs—or unintentionally as stowaways in pots or ship ballasts. The existence of these specimens in Michigan are the result of human intervention. The project is about the migration of plants, insects, birds and sea creatures and how humans were responsible—due to their migrations and their intentional and unintentional acts. Each photograph has a corresponding species list and notes that indicate origin and history of introduction to North America.

Photogenic Traces are camera-less photographic images made by placing natural forms onto light sensitive paper in the dark, exposing both to light, and processing the paper in photo chemicals. Natural ephemera including exoskeletons, snake skins, root systems, and the result of earthworm movement on the paper—things overlooked or hidden from view—are documented. This photographic method predates the camera and photograms served as scientific documents for botanists, such as British scientist Anna Atkins, in the 1800s. Photograms have also been used by modern and contemporary photographers to create images; the photographs are one of a kind, the detail rendered is astounding and results can be unpredictable. Utilizing live subjects, such as the earthworms, produces unique works that speak to today’s interest in process-based art.

Rachel Poliquin, in her 2012 book The Breathless Zoo, writes that "Taxidermy is deeply marked by human longing," revealing our hopes and dreams about our place in the natural world. Natural history dioramas present a carefully constructed, perfectly encapsulated and controlled experience of nature, revealing as much about humanity as the nature depicted. For my recent series, Broken Models, I negotiated access to photograph dioramas in various stages of being decommissioned. Using these fictional spaces to create imaginary scenes of my own, I introduced a worker wearing a white Hazmat suit, making notes of his observations. While the worker's tasks are unidentified, the series suggests a scientific method of understanding and quantifying our experience of nature. The white Hazmat suit was an aesthetic choice for these dimly lit interiors, however it was intentionally chosen to evoke images of advanced technology labs where the environment needs to be protected from the worker. The series title, Broken Models, refers to the deteriorating dioramas I photographed and to our failed construct of the environment as one of inexhaustible resources and the resiliency to accommodate, unchanged to our abuses.

In Compromised Beauty photographs of beautiful landscapes are complicated by the inclusion of workers in bright yellow Hazmat suits, suggesting environmental contamination from which the worker needs to be protected. In this series I explore the correlation between environmental beauty and perceived environmental health, and the impact of humans on the environment. While photography has been used to document and aestheticize the landscape, digital photography is also used to project what the future may be like. My photographs are fictions that combine a directorial approach to image making with a modernist photographic landscape aesthetic. Multiple photographs of my model are taken on location, and at times the images are digitally combined to suggest many figures present at the site. Because the circumstances depicted are ambiguous and the beautiful environment provides no clues to why the setting is inhospitable, the viewer is left to reconcile an unsettling narrative.