With Love. From an Invader. – Rhododendrons, Empire, China and Me is an intensive field study. Every other day for a year, Yan Wang Preston (CN/GB) went to a particular love-heart-shaped Rhododendron ponticum bush and photographed it. The ritual walks offered her time and space to experience, observe, and explore the land from different perspectives. She not only looked, listened, touched, and played, but also used a variety of methods to highlight the ‘invisible’ aspects of the otherwise bare landscape. Her infrared motion-sensitive cameras saw more than 20 different animal species, while her sound recorder heard over 45 different bird species in the area.

Other than observing and documenting, she also selected another tiny rhododendron shrub to have ‘hands on’ interactions. She collected all its fallen leaves in autumn, its seed capsules and aborted flower buds in winter, its fading flowers in spring and summer. This lengthy process of collecting in the field led to further embodiment with the British landscape and enabled Wang Preston to respond subjectively and intuitively to the materials, resulting in a complementary series Autumn Winter Spring Summer.

With Love. From an Invader. celebrates the life and resilience of the rhododendron. The book creates space to contemplate the intimacy, beauty, and strength of nature, and the eternity of time within an ecological and political framework. It is a love letter from a non-native species to the cosmopolitan ecology of contemporary Britain. It is also a love letter to the British land from its non-native inhabitants who make it a home for its multicultural residents, both human and non-human.

There will be a book launch at Stills: Centre for Photography, Edinburgh on 16 July, 6-8pm. To find out more and book at place please go to the direct link.