Jane Prophet - (sun)Flower Power
This series of triptych photographs is a symbolic protest against the war in Ukraine. For thousands of years in many European, Asia and African cultures, diverse symbolic meanings and languages have been assigned to flowers – this is “floriography”. Individual flower species have been associated with months of the year, used to express emotions from love to grief, and used to invoke peace.
The term "Flower Power" originated in Berkeley, California, emerging from protests against the Vietnam War. Beat poet Allen Ginsberg urged protesters, provided with "masses of flowers," to hand them to police officers, the press, politicians and spectators. The prints were made by repeatedly live-mixing videos of sunflowers using video processing software. The image of the sunflower shifts, slides and distorts but never disappears. It remains beautiful, and highly coloured, resilient despite the damage. Stills were selected from hours of videos and combined into triptychs.
