12201217482?profile=originalIn their collaborative project Almost Nothing But Blue Ground artist duo Tom Pope and Matthew Benington launch a live investigation into the work and life of Anna Atkins, an English botanical artist, and the first person to publish a book of photographic images.

Tom Pope and Matthew Benington combine storytelling, archival material, and collaboratively made cyanotype prints in a performative lecture. Since 2018 they have worked on a collaborative project, Almost Nothing But Blue Ground, exploring the work and life of Anna Atkins, the first person to publish a book of photographic images.

The work specifically focuses on the book, Cyanotypes of British and Foreign Ferns, which Atkins created collaboratively with Anne Dixon.

While researching the botanic publication, Pope and Benington came across the discovery that Atkin’s husband and father-in-law jointly owned at least eight plantations and thousands of slaves in Jamaica. Atkins, directly and indirectly, benefited from the slave trade and colonial wealth, refocussing her work and the publication.

In addition to the life and work of Atkins, Almost Nothing But Blue Ground investigates the Victorian fern craze, land ownership, capitalism, and the colonial landscape with its links to early botany and the plundering of foreign lands.

Almost Nothing But Blue Ground, and events
until Saturday 18 March 2023
East Gallery
Norwich University of the Arts
Francis House
3-7 Redwell Street
Norwich, NR2 4SN
See: https://www.nua.ac.uk/events/all/almost-nothing-but-blue-ground/

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