Ur-Plant (Transient Waters)

“Ur-Plant” ("Ur-Pflanze") refers to Goethe’s philosophical concept of a "primal" plant form that could help understand, from a holistic approach to botany, the structure and logic of all plant life. (The Metamorphosis of Plants, 1790).

In the context of the series “Transient Waters”, Ur-Plant evokes the original forces of the creation of life and their intimate biological and geometrical interactions with water. The series "Transient Waters" presents a photographic exploration of the natural water systems of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, on the Colombian Caribbean coast, which connect the region's unique snowcapped mountain peaks to the Caribbean Sea via a network of rivers and lagoons. These waterways hold deep significance within local traditional cosmogonies and play a crucial role in maintaining the ecological balance of the area. Taking a holistic approach, "Transient Waters" experiments with Goethe's "sensory imagination" scientific observation methods of the natural world, to weave together the objective environmental reality with the perception of the "transient nature of existence" rooted deep within the local mythological understanding of this changing landscape, and its cultural implications in today’s climate change context.