Farming Photographs
Farming Photographs is an ambitious art–science project that cultivates legible, living images through photosynthesis. Working with natural chromatic variations in plants, the project employs meticulously planned arrangements to generate images that unfold across the CMYK spectrum. These self-sustaining, light-sensitive surfaces reframe photography as a process enacted by living organisms.
At its core, the project functions as a practice-based research enquiry into the capacities of vegetal life to generate and sustain photographic images. The creation of living photographic images, not as mere visual representations but as performative and autonomous entities whose material transformations unsettle conventional notions of authorship, permanence and photographic representation, proposes a form of photography that is non-extractive, biological, and rooted in contemporary ecology. This approach invites reflection on our collective ecological responsibility, positioning the work within urgent debates around sustainability and environmental ethics.
Conceived as a series of evolving iterations, Farming Photographs positions photography not as a static imprint but as a living, sustainable medium. Dispensing with negatives, chemicals, inks and conventional technologies, each work relies solely on sunlight and the pigments produced through photosynthesis. In doing so, the project advances a rethinking of materiality, reasserting “light-writing” as an organic act carried out in collaboration with living organisms.
The work also draws inspiration from eyespot mimicry, the natural phenomenon where animals evolve eye-like patterns to deter predators. Here, a cultivated human eye gazes back at us from the land, symbolising our entanglement with the Earth and its ecosystems. Composed from features spanning diverse races and genders, this eye offers a universalised image of humanity: at once collective, symbolic, and reflexive.
Each iteration employs plant species specific to its host context, embedding site-responsive meaning while contributing to a wider, interconnected body of work. The chosen flora determines the work’s temporality: some compositions are fleeting, while others endure for decades or more. These durational registers mirror the precarious yet resilient dynamics of human–environment relations.
Farming Photographs ultimately proposes a synthesis of art, science and ecology. It addresses urgent socio-ecological concerns while extending the possibilities of photographic practice and advancing an understanding of the medium as a site of shared agency.
Iteration I: INRAE Toulouse, France
The first iteration of Farming Photographs is being realised in collaboration with the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRAE, Paris and Toulouse). Initiated in October 2023 and culminating in June 2026, the project will unfold in the fields of INRAE, where a monumental two-hectare living image, the largest photographic artwork ever produced, is being cultivated entirely from wheat grasses.
Drawing on INRAE’s ongoing genetic research, the work will be cultivated without pesticides, using only wheat, a crop ordinarily subjected to seven to nine chemical treatments per agricultural cycle. By combining both ancient and modern seed varieties within a single plot, the project adopts natural agricultural methods, prompting reflection not only on sustainable artistic practice but also on sustainable food systems.
This ephemeral work will be visible from June to July 2026, following the natural growth cycle of wheat. Once the crop matures, it will be harvested by INRAE in August. The wheat will then be transformed into flour, extending the artwork’s conceptual reach into everyday sustenance and returning its materiality to the communities who helped bring it into being.
Iteration II:
The second edition of Farming Photographs extends its critical inquiry into the medium through the organic cultivation of living images with cacti. Their minimal water requirements and life cycles of up to seventy years position them as emblematic agents in a tangible response to environmental concerns within artistic practice, particularly questions of conservation in the context of climate crisis. At the same time, they open up new performative and land art possibilities for photography as a medium.
Conceived as a radical meditation on sustainability and visual ecology in the age of the Anthropocene, these living photographic installations — spanning between 10 and 20 m² — operate as autonomous, sustainable, transportable, and self-sufficient works, foregrounding our shared ecological responsibility.
Their material transformations unsettle conventional notions of authorship, permanence, and photographic representation, advancing instead a non-extractive, biological mode of photography rooted in contemporary ecological discourse.
