For Herbarium Ghosts (2016–26), Orlow visited herbaria from London to Lisbon, photographing the pigmented forms and outlines on covering papers used to press plants collected on botanical expeditions. These fragile phantom images offer a ghostly evocation of not only the Western and colonial classification that haunts them, but also of a history of extraction and the ongoing extinction of thousands of plant species. Our gaze activates the latency of persistent presence: the plants become dynamic agents, prompting us to find a non-extractive way of being with the rest of the planet’s inhabitants.
