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Florilegia Annabel Dover

Florilegia By Annabel Dover

Florilegia by Annabel Dover


$17.49
Condition - Very Good
Only 3 left

Summary

Florilegia: a compilation of excerpts or, in Latin, a gathering of flowers. Taking the life of British botanist, Anna Atkins, as her initial point of departure, the narrator's own passions, collections, and so it follows biography soon becomes entwined with that of her subject.

Florilegia Summary

Florilegia by Annabel Dover

The blue and white print has the night-time glow of a Joseph Cornell ice-cube box or a Stan Brakhage film, the poppy glows candescent but is gone. Anna Atkins' dirty fingernails are pressing the damp skin of the poppy into cotton wadding and blotting paper until the life has dried out of it... Amateur botanist Anna Atkins is now widely considered to be the first woman ever to have taken a photograph. The introduction to one of her albums states that she uses the photographic medium in order to depict with the most accuracy possible, and so assist other scientists. Yet visual artist Annabel Dover's investigations led her to believe that Atkins doctored and adulterated certain specimens, collaging different sections of different plants together. In the subversive, scrapbook narrative that follows both historic and imaginary characters' stories are woven together: Henry James 'drowns' the clothes of a friend post-suicide; Joe Orton's cleaning lady considers the collaged wall in his bedsit; and Anna Atkins makes the seaweed prints that will then appear in the first photographic book to be published. A complex mixture of scientific observation and tender, girlish enthusiasm Florilegia is above all else a profound meditation on memory, loss, and our relationship to images.

Florilegia Reviews

Haunting, enchanting, and forensically observed... a tender, anthropological elegy, and it will stay with you long after you finish it. Sophie Dahl ----------A staggering accomplishment. Impossible to categorise, this is a work of exquisite art; encyclopaedic in its scope, drawing connections across time and cultures. An alchemist, Annabel Dover transmutes the minutiae of life into poetry. Heidi James ---------- An archive of nature and artifice in which every word shimmers with kaleidoscopic brilliance. Nancy Campbell ---------- Annabel Dover's writing is a delight: inquisitive, keen-eyed, alive with colour and texture; she has the rare ability to make details sing. I loved this book. Laura Barton---------- You'll never read another book like this... it defies any description save that it is mad, enchanting and mesmerising.... At its end I had no idea what I had been reading but I know it's a work of art. Polly Devlin---------- A fascinating, subversive and moving tribute to forgotten women by a unique artist. Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett ---------- A trippy, hyper-connected, vastly entertaining memoir entangled with the history of art, botany and science. It's hypnotising. Jennifer Higgie ---------- A strange, beautiful response to the life and work of botanist, photographer & cyanotype trail-blazer Anna Atkins. Book of the Month at The Learned Pig. ---------- Beautiful, fragmented ... haunting. What We're Watching, Reading and Listening to at A Little Bird.

About Annabel Dover

Annabel Dover was born in Liverpool and studied Fine Art at Newcastle University, Central Saint Martins, and Wimbledon College of Art. Known for using a variety of media including photography, her art practice explores the role that objects play in social relationships. A set of Dover's cyanotypes were recently acquired by The Imperial War Museum, and also feature in the art historian Carol Mavor's Blue Mythologies. Florilegia is her first book.

Additional information

GOR011551347
9781913430047
1913430049
Florilegia by Annabel Dover
Used - Very Good
Paperback
MOIST
20210531
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in very good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

Customer Reviews - Florilegia