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Garden Of Shapeshifters

“All things are always changing, but nothing dies," 

-Ovid, Metamorphosis

The shapeshifter is a figure of survival. These hybrid botanical bodies are undergoing reconfiguration. Plants entangle and grow from the body like a landscape. These plants are overlooked, mostly considered weeds. They are found in ditches, on railway embankments, and through fissures in concrete, quietly overtaking abandoned places. Fireweed, spine acanthus, stinging nettle—these are the plants that grow over bomb-site rubble and after forest fires. Growing from wounds, they leave traces of what has been left behind. Haunting the landscape while offering a space for refuge.

Erin Gallagher
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