© Francesca Loprieno from the series "In the Land of Wild Lilies"

Many varieties of lilies exist in nature; they have adapted to climates and many ecosystems. We find them in Asia, the Pacific Islands, North America, and Europe. Biodiversity is the maximum expression of the planet\'s adaptive capacity of life forms. Still, when observing our species, especially in an urban environment, we disavow its evolutionary character. Cities tend to be similar regarding people\'s performance, expectations, and beliefs. Humans shrink in them to almost disappear and appear as tiny insignificant gears carried here and there by a wind of indifference. The further we move away from the urban concrete, or the more the scale of the settlement reduces, the more the human being tends to show up and re-establish a relationship with the places to the point that it would be difficult to understand the spaces regardless of their inhabitants. Sometimes the word \"Genuis loci\" indicates this unique alchemy that describes the sense of places. The series of photographs by Francesca Loprieno is inspired in the title by the wild lilies that grow in Fonzaso, a small town in the Grappa massif. It is a hymn to the local people, those seeking authenticity, a soup of signs and hints like faces torn from History, the giant one that too often forgets people because it is busy chasing dates and records. So this is photography that betrays the great History and presses it with human nuances and a soil aftertaste.

© Francesca Loprieno from the series "In the Land of Wild Lilies"

© Francesca Loprieno from the series "In the Land of Wild Lilies"

This lead to another question: does the habitat we are part of nourish us and shape our experiences, memories, and expectations? If I look at the photographs by Quang Lam, I must agree. The imperial city of Hue, Vietnam, is often cited for the harmony between nature and architecture symbiosis that benefits its visitors' souls and spirits. Its lush gardens and coexistence of styles make this place an oasis of mixité. This place recalls other royal episodes, dynasties, and regents who surrounded their homes with beautiful environments to surprise their guests and demonstrate their sumptuousness. The series leads us to reflect in at least two directions. The first is that these events concerned a handful of wealthy people.

© Quang Lam from the series 'Architecture of Eternity'

The living conditions of the masses have not always coincided with an earthly Eden. Even today, this is the case if we observe urbanism and, in particular, the state of the suburbs or the metropolitan densities that leave little space for green dreams. A terrace is already a privilege. In its progressive urbanization, the human species has distanced itself from nature, forced into concrete towers whose temperature is acceptable by air conditioning. We can easily admit that the urban lesson is somewhat grey, if not dirty. It's hard to deny that there is a lot of talk about how to make the modern polis eco-friendly, but we are far from a symbiosis with the environment. Let's face it: green is almost a decoration. Nature or vegetation is more of a valuable slogan for constructing cycle paths and purchasing electric transport. The practical question is, what do asphalt, concrete, speed, speculative mutation, and removal of references produce in man? Let's further summarize the question: is the metropolitan dimension harmful to health? What is the net balance? If, on the one hand, these photographs show us an idyllic place, on the other, they hide for a moment a reality that is quite different in Vietnam, as in much of the world. And here we come to the second consideration. Can we transform the world and our habitats into gardens or spaces where we can have a respectful experience of the cosmos? Or is the flora journey summarized as a walk in the park, along a pedestrianized riverbank, or a "demineralized" waterfront? Is this just a utopia?
As we search for answers, these photographs offer us a different memory of what could be.

© Quang Lam from the series 'Architecture of Eternity'

© Quang Lam from the series 'Architecture of Eternity'

The garden is also synonymous with care and compassion. Mireille Schellhorn returns to the topic with a series of photographs that illustrate different plant restoration interventions. These images, collected in several places in the US, speak of a common will to safeguard and protect plants, of a benevolent feeling whose border expands to the world. However, these images also tell us of a special complicity. Of friendship, in a way. Can we be friends with a plant? Are we sure that only plants benefit from this relationship? These green devices, these crutches, also inject moral aid for those who apply them. Taking care of a plant is a possibility to take care of ourselves. A further consideration concerns the context of these photographs. We are primarily in urban environments, and these plants appear to us, first of all, solitary. They perform a "vegetable (or green) entertainment" function, inserted in a context that is certainly not theirs. Therefore, between the lines of this investigation, a metaphor of human culture as said by the author, we can also glimpse a space for rethinking our settlements and our way of life, which sometimes appears alien to the world. What if the plants took care of us? What if they define the parameters on which to structure our habitats? What if their health was the thermometer of our well-being? What if we learned to design places rich in biodiversity as forests? We are very far from imagining all this.

© Mireille Schellhorn from the series "TO THE RESCUE – An architecture of restoration" 

© Mireille Schellhorn from the series "TO THE RESCUE – An architecture of restoration"

© Mireille Schellhorn from the series "TO THE RESCUE – An architecture of restoration"  

Drew Waters' work takes us right into a web of questions that touch our way of being in the world and shake the foundations of our social behavior, at least of a relevant part of the world. The series "Contra Costa" questions the control and dominion over the planet filtered through images of an ordinary suburb. The viewer observes a mental sprawl, an anonymous condition that often distinguishes American suburbia. The night vision reduced to black and white dramatizes the details of a miniature landscape that reveals a therapeutic fury over the forces of nature. Perverse geometries, a perfectionist craving, a topiary competition that borders paranoia. Where does all this come from? What thoughts brought us here? What past traumas does the apparent quietness hide? Nature is obedient and subservient to our will and hobbies; is this a true illusion rather than a great enlightenment? Everything turned into goods, from hedges to the workers that cut the grass. Although these plants support our diorama, the human comedy staged on a flowerbed, they don't need us. They were there before and will probably be there after precisely because they don't think like us. They speak together. We talk alone. We think of us as individuals. Plants do not exist as totems on a lawn that resembles a green carpet. They are there because we put them. And they reflect our loneliness. Our survival is restless because it lacks generosity and is forced into fences.

© Drew Waters from the series "Contra Costa"

© Drew Waters from the series "Contra Costa"

© Drew Waters from the series "Contra Costa"

QUANG LAM (urbanautica)
FRANCESCA LOPRIENO (website) 
MIREILLE SCHELLHORN (website)
DREW WATERS (website)