As part of the Neuchâtel survey, Olga Cafiero, the winner of the competition, is proposing a survey of the canton's flora and a visual presentation of it. In an approach representative of her usual practice, she has developed a project with strong historical roots, going back and forth with the past, its figures and its objects, of which she always acquires a solid knowledge. Often luxuriant, the artist's work defines and brings together distinct typologies of images, fashioned from an overabundance of information with which she enjoys confronting, and from which she always unearths an unsuspected and coherent vision.
For almost a year, accompanied by her camera, she travelled the length and breadth of Neuchâtel in search of these flowers. She unearthed more than 160 of the more than 2,300 specimens currently counted. The status of these flowers - considered common, protected, invasive or extinct - has guided her visual approach, leading her to produce seven photographic series. In them, she brings together several disciplines and their dissimilar perspectives on nature. Botany, scientific imagery and history have informed her approach and fuelled her explorations as much as her own walks. The result is a singular body of work, with multiple and unexpected facets, as rigorous in its inventory and identification of plant species as it is poetic and complex in its visual language". (extract from Danaé Panchaud's text for the book published by Scheidegger&Spiess), book designed by Onlab.
