SILENT SCREAM

An exclusive collection of Endangered Species

Paphiopedilum Rothschildianum

PLANTS UNDER PRESSURE

In Alliance with some of the world’s largest collections of endangered flowers Richard Fischer is exclusively supplied with these well-treasured species for photographic assignment: Fischer’s concept covers a wide range of flora. Each specimen is unique in it’s beauty and many of them are threatened to extinction within a time period of just one generation.

„Flowers have always represented beauty at its most natural and fleeting so it is terrible to know that some of the most beautiful specimens are about to be lost forever. I therefore feel compelled to do something, to document as many as I can, and to celebrate their radiance before they have disappeared.“

The origins of Fischer’s flowers range from the Amazon basin to the high damp ranges of the Central American jungles to the islands of Madagascar. Photographs of most of these specimens only can be found in scientific catalogues.

Fischer’s concept goes beyond the science to capture their essence and present it for what it is. Beauty in its simplest form, mysterious and powerful.

Scientists estimate that many of Fischer’s flowers will have become extinct within our lifetime. Richard Fischer first started photographing flowers in 1999, and has won numerous international awards for his work. Critics have hailed his work as „masterpieces of photographic art“ and likened them to „Floral Sculptures“.

Statements Duke University & Missouri Botanical Garden, USA

Almost half of all plant species could be facing extinction, according to new research by botanists in the United States.

Until now the official tally of endangered plants, compiled by the World Conservation Union, has suggested that only about one in eight plant species could disappear. But the researchers, writing in the journal Science, now believe this figure to be a gross underestimate.They say the old assessment does not include a reliable tally of species at risk in the tropical latitudes, where most of the world’s plants grow. Nigel Pitman (Duke University, Center for Tropical Conservation, North Carolina) and Peter Jorgensen  (Missouri Botanical Gardens, St. Louis) say the world is teetering on the edge of an extinction crisis, as more and more plants disappear each year. Jorgensen suggests that in the worst case scenario almost half the world’s plants are at risk.  

THE FUNERAL OF NATURE
THE HOPE PRINCIPLE

is the metaphorical artistic implementation to raise public awareness for a dying biological world. The burial of a unique endangered plant photograph by artist Richard Fischer underlines the reality of climate change that is a disturbing and irritating fact. This exclusive artwork was buried and exposed to humus, rain, heat, cold, humidity, decay, and to absolute darkness.

It was then exhumed for final presentation in a BLACK BOX within the venue of the Flower Art Museum. Nothing like this has ever been done before to a photograph and nothing is closer to extinction than the message of this artistic approach. After exhumation, factor hope remains an authentic reality. Will humanity succeed in stopping such insane loss of our floral world?
Richard Fischer

Cycles