Halidrys siliquosa, β minor c. 1843 - 1853

Curator: Right, here we have Anna Atkins's "Halidrys siliquosa, β minor," made sometime between 1843 and 1853. What grabs you first about this cyanotype, this photogram? Editor: That piercing blue. It's stark, almost melancholic. Like a memory surfacing from deep water. Curator: Precisely. Atkins, a botanist by trade, pioneered photography as a scientific tool. What she was really trying to do was document, catalogue. Editor: There’s a delicate contradiction though, isn't there? This method seems so direct, placing the object directly on treated paper. Yet that deep cyan somehow abstracts everything. Removes the immediacy. What kind of space did the early public of photography assign this novel union of science and artistry? Curator: Absolutely. Photography was not only new but the idea that photography could stand for objective truth had not set in yet. Institutions wanted it to follow a path parallel with painting. Establish movements and theories and adhere to strict rules. Her project exists outside of those strictures. She was a woman scientist publishing privately, creating purely for utility and, well, wonder. The shadow and light give us both the solid form of the algae and this ethereal ghostly essence. Editor: It’s so beautifully simple. The crispness of the seaweed against that almost unnerving backdrop is so visually striking. I keep wondering how viewers at the time read it... the strangeness of photography made banal through documentation or the banality of science heightened with artistic intention. It really forces us to question how we view and assign value to artworks even today. Curator: I concur completely. Seeing a piece like this makes you rethink the lines between art, science, and… simply seeing. Editor: Definitely. Now, I feel like staring at some seaweed and doing some "objective" tests of my own!