Plantago lanceolata

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The source of inspiration for this work is my family’s habit of drinking boiled Chinese plants. Today some people choose to take prescription medicine to treat the disease, but our family has always used these beneficial plants, boiling them into medicine in the form of a soup. People don’t usually think of these plants as being medicinal - the grasses are often common, sometimes the plant may look a little weird, or even like a weed. But they are actually unique and have important human nutrients.

I have taken inspiration from Ann Shelton’s recent images of plants in which she takes particular plants as sculptural elements and titles them with a type of woman which also relates to women’s body and health.

In the process of making the set-up stage of the work, I first used the reference of the encyclopedia to photograph the plants. Then moving into styling the different herbs and beverages (made from the plants) borrowing from product photography. In the final stage, I have chosen to transplant the plants into the kitchen, thus mapping the use of these plants directly into people's lives.