Ceramium echionotum c. 1843 - 1853

Curator: This delicate print, titled "Ceramium echionotum", was created by Anna Atkins between 1843 and 1853. It’s a cyanotype, an early photographic process that gives the print its distinctive blue hue. Editor: Immediately, the forms remind me of ghostly coral or the branching of frost on a windowpane. There's a certain stillness to the image. Curator: It’s a part of a broader project by Atkins. She was documenting different types of algae using this new photographic technique, cyanotype, essentially creating a visual encyclopedia of British algae. As a woman scientist at the time, publishing these photographically illustrated books was groundbreaking. Editor: Yes, and cyanotypes carry with them a symbolic resonance. Blue is often linked with intellect, the sky, the sea, spirituality… It also evokes feelings of melancholy, the ‘blues’ if you will, a sense of lost time when considering these almost fossil-like specimens. The delicate forms of the algae captured so precisely also conjure images of fragile ecosystems and natural sciences. Curator: It's interesting how this scientific precision exists within such a subjective aesthetic experience. As an activist, I cannot look at this work without recognizing its place within the historically patriarchal scientific fields. Access was not equitable. Therefore, this book can be viewed as a feminist intervention using a very modern technology. Editor: Absolutely. And within a Jungian frame, water plants often represent the unconscious mind, the deep roots of being. Atkins uses a then-novel process of photography as a means to delve into and reveal the inner structures of the natural world, thus offering us not just a visual document, but an allegorical journey. Curator: Absolutely. Thank you for showing new lenses to consider it from. This makes the artwork so powerful. Editor: My pleasure. It’s always fascinating to see how different symbolic and historic pathways can shed new light.