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Oscar-winner Steve McQueen on the flowers that outlived empire
The book links Grenada’s blooms to colonial rule and migration, with McQueen saying the flowers are witnesses to a history of displacement.
- Artist Steve McQueen released 'Bounty', a photographic book documenting the flowers of Grenada, published by MACK, using Saint Lucian poet Derek Walcott's elegy 'The Bounty' as a literary touchstone.
- McQueen first encountered Grenada's flora at age nine during a 1979 visit to his grandfather, with the island's history of 17th-century European colonization and 19th-century slavery abolition shaping the project's foundation.
- Departing from traditional botanical archives at Kew Gardens, McQueen photographed plants in their natural environment, stating 'The context, the land, the soil were very important' to avoid isolating specimens from human histories.
- These flowers are 'witnesses' that have remained as generations were displaced, enslaved, and rebuilt their lives, according to McQueen, who aims to slow viewers down to see flora as part of a longer record of land politics.
- By de-centering the colonial habit of treating land as property, the project positions flora within a deeper temporal frame, inviting viewers to see human life as part of a longer, shared planetary story.
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13 Articles
Coverage Details
Total News Sources13
Leaning Left4Leaning Right1Center6Last UpdatedBias Distribution55% Center
Bias Distribution
- 55% of the sources are Center
55% Center
L 36%
C 55%
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