Throughout Quincunx, there has been an emphasis on a process-led as opposed to outcome-led working. Research-led conversations have been the foundation of our collaborative process and the Covid-19 pandemic has arguably brought the feeling of being together and the potential to exchange research via online channels into stark relief.
Below are fragments of the collaborators’ work that they feel comfortable sharing at this point. Shared directly from the artists, they form a kind of ‘sketchbook’. Together, they afford insight into their meditations on medicinal plants and constitute a basis for future work.
Rachel Pimm, Quincunx (Detail), 2020
Rachel presents a Garden Medicine Chorus – a series of short moving picture archives dedicated to herbal remedies for the throat and lungs, set to the pace of a song or breathing exercise. The videos are made alongside a growing physics garden, apothecary and pharmacopoeia, bandaged in a linen quincunx.
Rachel Pimm, O SOW, 2020
Rachel Pimm, O BREATH, 2020
Rachel Pimm, O BLOOM, 2020
Rachel Pimm, O VOICE, 2020
Lilah documents thoughts, observations and activities in a pictorial format, illustrating materials, planting, gardening, sound, dye experiments, books, sentences, landscapes, equipment, weaving, drawing and collected natural objects.
Known uses: mucoprotective, inflammation, for asthma, bronchitis, bactericidal (flowers, leaves). Dyes yellow, green
Foraged and drying: Rumex acetosella/common sorrel, Malva sylvestris/common mallow, Lonicera caprifolium/honeysuckle, Cytisus scoparius/scotch broom. Dye Colour palette: green, ombre, yellow, mustard, brown, black
Foraged and drying: Rumex acetosella/common sorrel, Malva sylvestris/common mallow, Lonicera caprifolium/honeysuckle, Cytisus scoparius/scotch broom. Dye Colour palette: green, ombre, yellow, mustard, brown, black
Preparations for future yarn dyeing using locally foraged or grown medicinal plants
Known uses: diuretic, expectorant, stimulant for inflammation (flowers, berries). Dyes mauve, pink, raspberry, magenta
Known uses: anti-microbial for pathogens, purgative, for inflammation, sprains, chilblains (leaves). Dyes black, green
Known uses: circulation, inflammation, dropsy. Dyes yellow, green, orange, khaki
Dyes yellow, green, orange, khaki
Known uses: anti-inflammatory, anti-spasmodic, sedative. Dyes orange-yellow
Known uses: antiseptic wound dressing
Weave pattern based on a lungwort image and using varying shades of flax dyed yarn. Weaving size: 20 x 9 cm (Original lungwort image and dyed yarn by Rachel Pimm. Weaving by Lilah Fowler)
Weave pattern based on a lungwort image and using varying shades of flax dyed yarn. Weaving size: 20 x 9 cm (Original lungwort image and dyed yarn by Rachel Pimm. Weaving by Lilah Fowler)
Woven using varying shades of flax dyed yarn. Yarn dyed by Rachel Pimm
A meditation on research itself, and the human/nature divide, Holly contributes a ‘desktop composition’ of collected video fragments and loops as a way of exploring patterns of symbiosis and rhythms of breath and being. This is accompanied by a sound piece that mixes micro-samples of gathered material to form a new composition, a storage container of sorts.
Holly Márie Parnell, Desktop Compositions (Quincunx edition), 2020
Drawing on the atomic structure of the quincunx and its lozenge formation, Daisy shares adapted cinquains (five-line poems with 2-4-6-4-2 syllabic structure) that draw on medicinal plant properties, nomenclature and histories, alongside footage of lungwort flowers and leaves as seen through a microscope.
Daisy Lafarge, Cinquains, 2020
Daisy Lafarge, Recording of Cinquains, 2020
Daisy Lafarge, Lungwort flower, 2020
Peiran shares her home-cooking recipes of ‘food as medicine’ for lungs and breathing. She presents documentation and thought processes behind creating dishes around herbs that the other artists are growing and the ingredients nature provides, in harmony with traditional Chinese medicine theories.
Peiran Gong, Five home-cooking recipes of ‘food as medicine’ for lungs and breathing, 2020