Nancy Dayanne Valladares (b.1991) 來自宏都拉斯的德古西加巴 (Tegucigalpa)，為跨領域藝術家及電影工作者。她的作品致力於處理植物性想像的建構及之中的幽靈。受化學民族誌、批判性植物研究和未來主義影響，其影像實踐探討光學工具的構成，及其伴隨的視覺機制。她的創作近距離檢驗了攝影與植物性想像、化學遺產的歷史糾纏。她在芝加哥藝術學院取得了美術學士學位，並在麻省理工學院獲得藝術文化與科技的碩士學位。她近期為哈佛大學電影研究中心的研究員，也是麻省理工學院跨媒體敘事計劃 Fialkow 研究員，現駐村於德紹包浩斯校舍。她的作品曾展覽及放映於麻省理工 Sakiya 學院 (巴勒斯坦) 、Wiesner 藝廊、Chuquimarca 計劃、歌德學院 Sullivan 藝廊、德紹包浩斯、芝加哥藝術學院、亞洲藝術研究所及 Roman Susan 藝廊。
Nancy Dayanne Valladares (b.1991) is an interdisciplinary artist and filmmaker from Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Her work grapples with the constructions of vegetal imaginaries and the specters that lie within. Influenced by discourses on chemoethnography, critical plant studies, and speculative futurism, her image-based practice delves into the formation of optical tools and their accompanying visual regimes. Her practice closely examines photography’s historical entanglement with botanical imaginaries and chemical legacies.
Valladares completed her Bachelor in Fine Arts from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Masters of Science in Art, Culture and Technology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was recently a Fellow at Harvard University’s Film Studies Center, A Fialkow Fellow from the Transmedia Storytelling Initiative at MIT, and a resident at Bauhaus Dessau. Her work has been exhibited and screened at Massachusett’s Institute of Technology, Sakiya (Palestine), Weisner Gallery, Chuquimarca Projects, Sullivan Galleries Goethe Institute, Bauhaus Dessau, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Research House for Asian Art, and Roman Susan Gallery.
2017 年在宏都拉斯特拉市的蘭斯蒂利亞植物園 (Lancetilla Botanical Gardens)，是我第一次遇見桃樂絲·波佩諾(Dorothy Popenoe)。當時的我正在製作一支錄像作品，試圖爬梳聯合水果公司 (United Fruit Company) 從20世紀初以來以此地為據點，其背後政治與歷史的線索。歷經三年的時間，我擷取自哈佛皮博迪博物館 (Harvard Peabody Museum)、卡內基梅隆的植物文獻館 (Botanical Documentation, Carnegie Mellon) 和皇家植物園邱園 (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew) 檔案文獻中的空白之處，並依據桃樂絲的書信和照片推演出資料檔案。
這個計劃從桃樂絲的私人生活與畢生工作中誕生，是對桃樂絲的致敬，也是對宏都拉斯植物世界的致意。由一組圖像、文字及錄像相互組成，植物幽靈 回溯了阿開木 (Blighia Sapida) 跨大西洋的旅行路徑，以及它在 1932 年，於蘭斯蒂利亞植物實驗站 (Lancetilla Botanical Experimental Station) 與桃樂絲的相遇。
此地是幾十年來形塑宏都拉斯政治生態的中心 — 關於植物治理和非人類生命的管理之間，如古箘般存在的潛台詞。在此蓬勃發展的農業模式以農業技術的形式傳播到世界各地。
I first crossed paths with Dorothy Popenoe at what is now Lancetilla Botanical Gardens in Tela, Honduras in 2017. I was working on a film at the time, trying to untangle the political and historical threads behind United Fruit Company’s stronghold in the region during the early 20th Century. I spent three years drawing from the gaps in archival collections at the Harvard Peabody Museum, the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation at Carnegie Mellon, and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, to create the speculative archive with Dorothy’s letters and photographs.
From her life and work emerged this project, which is both a homage to Dorothy and to the turbulent history of Honduran plantation worlds. Comprised of a constellation of images, texts, and video, Botanical Ghosts traces the transatlantic voyage of the Ackee Tree (Blighia Sapida), and its encounter with Dorothy at Lancetilla Botanical Experimental Station in 1932.
This site was the central command of the political forces that shaped Honduran political ecology for decades — the unspoken archaeon of botanical governance and administration of non-human life. The agricultural paradigms that flourished here would spread all over the world in the form of agricultural technologies.