Eleonora
Busato
Le Jardin d'Éden,
2024
Le Jardin d'Éden,
Series of four cyanotype prints on paper
12.5x12.5 cm
2024
Le Jardin d’Éden is the first photographic series of an ongoing research project exploring the concept of the garden through cyanotype printing, a technique historically used for creating illustrated botanical books and herbariums.
The images in this initial investigation observe plant life within an urban setting: wild grasses and flowers grow spontaneously in the modest green spaces of a residential complex on the northern outskirts of Paris.
While the cyanotype prints reveal the deep fragility of a plant ecosystem within a context of urban cohabitation, they also—above all—acknowledge the extraordinary dignity of these subjects, which become symbols of hope, perseverance, and resilience.
In his essay collection Beauty in Photography, photographer Robert Adams pays particular attention to the concept of the garden. He describes it as “the last refuge of disillusionment” and, much like a landscape, “a sanctuary of truth.” Adams examines the etymology of the word paradise, which in Persian means “a walled, enclosed space”—a definition that, in a sense, mirrors what photographers see through the viewfinder.
In this serial exploration, plant life becomes the catalyst for an artistic discourse that questions our cultural and territorial references, as well as a fundamental ecological responsibility.
As for Le Jardin d’Éden, the project takes shape in its exhibition form starting from the original negatives, captured with a medium-format analog camera. These negatives serve as the matrix for a series of small cyanotype prints (5.6 × 5.6 cm), each individually placed within a custom-made frame created by the artist using materials such as concrete and mortar. These materials aim to recontextualize the images, situating them within a space that evokes the conditions in which the photographic subjects exist.
