Description
a book of multiple layers, that reflect the organism and the environmental conditions that they require to survive
a book of multiple encounters, from the controlled conditions of the herbarium, to wild wanderings
a book that can be read from multiple directions, or viewpoints, starting with science or experience
The book explores one woman’s relationship with Map Lichen and the places that they inhabit. Over a period of two years she travelled to locations across the UK to spend time with the lichen in often remote and challenging terrain. She walked and slept among the lichen, sensitising herself to the elements that these friendly green crusts need to survive. She made photographs and wrote poems. The ‘maps’ guiding her into lichen territory.
Alongside her fieldwork she spent time with displaced lichen. The Natural History Museum in London is home to half a million lichen specimens, looked after by the Curator of Lichens. 120 of these samples are Map Lichen collected across the UK from the 1800s. Each visitor to the collection reviews the files and leaves their own notes, suggestions and new samples… After all science, knowledge and the herbarium itself are not static.
