Spazio Nobile Gallery : Vincent Fournier : Flora Incognita

This is one of the most astonishing exhibitions of the Brussels Photography Festival. It is called Flora Incognita, it is presented by photographer Vincent Fournier at the Spazio Nobile Gallery. He sent us this text.

Flora incognita – Potential Astrobotany Herbarium

Between surrealism and scientific speculation, the Flora Incognita project imagines what our terrestrial flora could look like if it grew on other planets. Inspired by the singularity of recently discovered exoplanets, this herbarium extrapolates another form of plant life capable of adapting to extreme phenomena: supersonic wind, gravitational collapse, ocean of steam, gaseous tidal waves, metallic rain, ice hot, endless days and nights…

This dialogue between the terrestrial and the extra-terrestrial resonates particularly today with the metamorphoses of the living world and its ever more perfected representations. The photogrammetry technique used to model plants from an assembly of hundreds of photographs therefore makes it possible to extrapolate growth architectures while restoring to the plant their qualities of shapes, colors and materials with enormous precision and details.

Presented in the form of encyclopedic plates, this herbarium of potential astrobotany is the result of exchanges with several scientists in speculative exobiology, associated with the National Museum of Natural History, CNRS and NASA.

The herbarium is accompanied by a “bauplan” which organizes the constituent elements shared by all plant species and a phylogenetic classification based on their degree of relationship.

By mirror effect, anticipating the adaptability of our flora on other planets raises the question of terrestrial challenges in the face of climatic upheavals. This work of speculative biology proposes a reinvention of life whose possible transformations unfold infinitely like a garden of delights, in reference to the famous painting by the Flemish primitive Hieronymus Bosch who, with other painters of his time, drew the first landscapes of humanity, between belief, reality and utopia.

Vincent Fournier : Flora Incognita
Until March 2, 2025
Spazio Nobile Gallery
Rue Franz Merjay 142, B-1050 Brussels
https://spazionobile.com/

Photo Brussels Festival is open from January 23 to February 23, 2025.
https://www.photobrusselsfestival.com/