worm-root-wort-bane reconstructs a suppressed history of plant knowledge — tracing the medicinal, magical, and spiritual relationships between humans and plants from ancient European forest peoples through to the present day, told through photography, quotation, and essay.
About This Book
This is a book about what was lost when wise women, witches, and wortcunners were displaced by the spread of Christianity and the rise of capitalism in post-feudal Europe. Artist Ann Shelton assembles that loss in fragments — over 300 images and quotations drawn from art, literature, film, folklore, and herbal tradition — alongside the first 19 works from her photographic series i am an old phenomenon (2022–ongoing). The plant sculptures Shelton photographs are constructed by hand, and the book's intersectional approach draws on historical accounts, folk knowledge, and contemporary research to map our estrangement from the natural world across gender, sexuality, and time. Part artist scrapbook, part photographic monograph, part exhibition catalogue, this is a genuinely hybrid publication.
Key Features
- 312 pages of photographic works, historical quotations, folk knowledge, and critical essays
- Essays by photographic curator Susan Bright and Victoria Munro, Executive Director of Alice Austen House; short story The Three Fates by New Zealand writer Pip Adam
- Includes the first 19 artworks from Shelton's photographic series i am an old phenomenon (2022–ongoing)
- Published by Rim Books / Alice Austen House Press, 2022
What You'll Discover
- How plant-centric belief systems were systematically eroded as capitalism and Christianity displaced the knowledge held by wise women and wortcunners in post-feudal Europe
- The construction of Shelton's hand-built plant sculptures and their relationship to the history of floral art and its gendered resonances
- A multiplicity of sometimes conflicting voices on plants, gender, and sexuality — approached through an intersectional framework rather than a singular historical narrative
- How human relationships with plants shifted from the Victorian era to the present, and what ongoing estrangement from the natural world continues to cost us
About the Author
Ann Shelton is an artist who has worked with plants since childhood and has long engaged with the history of floral art and its gendered resonances. Her photographic series i am an old phenomenon, begun in 2022, forms the visual core of this publication, with plant sculptures constructed by Shelton herself.
Specifications
- Format: Hardcover
- Pages: 312
- Dimensions: 21 x 13.2 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9798988814801
- Publisher: Rim Books / Alice Austen House Press
- Publication Date: 2022
Perfect For: Artists, photographers, and researchers working at the intersection of feminist history, ecology, and visual culture; readers interested in the politics of plant knowledge, folk tradition, and the photographic artist's book.