Jimmy Fike, a Phoenix-based photographer and plant enthusiast, has embarked on a ten-year project to document edible plants of the North American continent.
Jimmy Fike, a Phoenix-based photographer and plant enthusiast, has embarked on a ten-year project to document edible plants of the North American continent.
The project—operating under the lengthy title J.W. Fike’s Photographic Survey of the Wild Edible Botanicals of the North American Continent; Plates in Which the Edible Parts of the Specimen Have Been Illustrated in Color, which references 19th-century scientific illustration monographs—mimics a scientific illustration style that carefully renders the subject on a blank background and devoid of context. The series educates viewers about untapped food sources in their immediate environment and encourages an intimate relationship with those plants.
Fike’s photographic survey empowers viewers to connect with the natural world and disrupt a capitalist structure that was partially formed with the help of scientific illustration. Major endeavors in scientific illustration and taxonomy occurred alongside colonization of the Americas with the aim of identifying natural resources and placing a monetary value on them for the Spanish Crown. Early botanists were often sent to the Americas on the same ships as colonizers with the assignment of collecting and illustrating specimens. The tradition of scientific illustration evolved over time—it’s also been utilized by naturalists as a way to create awareness around conservation.
Fike’s take on the art form encourages foraging, an activity that naturally bypasses systems of capitalism. In Fike’s images, the edible parts of the plants are isolated and colorized so that the viewer is easily able to identify which parts are safe to eat. In Soap Plant (2020), for instance, the flowers and stem of the plant are rendered in black and white, while the edible inner root sports the creamy pale yellow color of a ripe clove of garlic. Aesthetically, the combination of color and monochrome makes for an exciting variation of a typical scientific illustration that persuades a viewer to examine closely.
Nowadays, foragers are able to find sustenance while forming intimate relationships with their neighboring flora, which leads to a deeper appreciation of the trees and grasses outside their front doors. Today’s foragers such as Fike agree that personal relationships with plants are critical to countering climate emergencies—the ideal outcome of Fike’s photographic survey is to help people want to stop climate change in the same way that they would want to help save a neighbor’s house from burning down.
Jimmy Fike’s book Edible Plants: A Photographic Survey of the Wild Edible Botanicals of North America is scheduled to be published February 2022 and is available for pre-order.
