Debora Hirsch

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When Albert Eckhout (1610–65)—court painter to Dutch governor-general Johan Maurits—set off for Northeast Brazil in 1636, it was his first venture outside of the Dutch Republic. Maurits, with whom Eckhout traveled, had a particular interest in natural history, and it would be Eckhout’s duty to capture the astonishing natural resources and general fecundity of seventeenth-century Dutch Brazil through his art. During the seven years that Eckhout would reside in Brazil, he created hundreds of drawings and oil studies that he would later use to paint exquisite still lifes. The excitement and allure of Eckhout’s initial encounters with untamed Brazilian flora seep from these paintings; his gleaming green coconuts, ripe melons, and luscious cashew apples convey a freshness and bounty that beckons to viewers, eliciting astonishment and encouraging them to taste and experience such exotic abundance for themselves. At the same time, paintings of the colony’s natural resources asserted the power and status of the Dutch Republic and its governor-general among the seventeenth-century aristocratic elite; the works created by Maurits’s court painters were given as gifts and ended up in the collections of King Frederik II of Denmark and Louis XIV in France, among others.[i]

Colonial conceptions of the natural world are embodied not just in the paintings of European travelers, but also in the collections formed by traveling biologists. The students of the Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus (1707–78), for example, voyaged across the globe gathering plant species and naming them according to European systems of knowledge. The preserved specimens that these biologists amassed would, in many cases, form the basis of institutional herbaria that today continue to mirror asymmetrical power structures; the majority of plant specimens collected from the tropics—where, significantly, the most plant diversity naturally exists—are now housed in Europe and the United States.[ii]  These botanical resources are perhaps even more crucial now than they once were; they can be used, for example, to understand the progress of invasive species, or to help guide conservation planning.

Brazilian-born artist Debora Hirsch, whose work directly addresses the legacies of both Eckhout and imperial biologists, interrogates the belief that humans have dominion over nature, and a right to exploit biological resources for their own gain. In her subtle yet profoundly insightful series Herbaria (2024), Hirsch presents images of pressed plants, mostly native to New York State, that are in varying stages of disappearance due to human interventions. In her video animation HERBARIA (2024), fragile petals, paper-thin leaves, and lithe stems flutter briefly in undefined space, almost assuming anthropomorphic qualities, before fading to white—a reminder that these species will soon only exist in memory. Hirsh often incorporates plants found in the regions where she exhibits, and thus calls for a reassessment of how we interact with—or utterly disregard—our immediate natural surroundings.

Hirsch’s focus on what has been lost through nature’s colonization extends to her evolving project PLANT (2023 – ongoing), which explores the aesthetic and ethical dimensions of extinction while questioning art’s ability to preserve memories and specimens. Hirsch employs artificial intelligence to create her PLANT works, using a pretrained model that she fine-tunes with her own proprietary datasets to generate myriad images reflecting her subject and painting style, which she then distills into a single work. This fruitful employment of cutting-edge technology results in sumptuous compositions whose interdependent elements reflect the complex and fragile habitats that sustain biodiversity. Hirsch records her PLANT works on the blockchain, which she interprets as a “metaphorical counterpart to the physical herbarium”—a permanent, immutable database capable of preserving the endangered species that she represents. While Hirsch’s portrayals of blooms, birds, and baroque scrolls perhaps hark back to Eckhout’s sensuous flora and fauna—one can nearly feel the velvety petals of the blossoms centered in her prints—here, sensuality draws our attention to potentially devastating losses, rather than New World wonders to be gained. Hirsch invites viewers not to fetishize the unknown, but to savor what may, very soon, be impossible to experience in the wild.

Works from the Herbaria and PLANT series are not the first in which Hirsch has addressed the processes and outcomes of colonialism. The artist’s Firmamento paintings (2018–present) allude to Brazilian rivers that were harnessed for the purposes of environmental exploitation and territorial control. Like Hirsch’s PLANT series, these compositions integrate details of the baroque architecture that surged during colonial rule and even now dominates numerous Latin American cities. We can find further references to European imperialism in the shackles that are interwoven with architectural flourishes and aqueous swells, which together evoke the waterways that transported slaves to colonial plantations.

Hirsch has also melded explorations of historical colonialism with the present colonization of humanity by way of the internet. The artist understands the internet as an “abstracted space where oppressive power continues to exert its force”—a mode of control to which we are increasingly and insidiously subjected. In her 2020 work Binary Fresco, Hirsch juxtaposes representations of ancient and natural worlds with digital imaging and binary codes. The temporal, visual, and sonic layering that defines this work links the colonization of the Americas to contemporary digital colonialism and underscores the pervasive influence of virtual culture in our daily lives.

Not only are Hirsch’s works infused with eloquent admonitions, but her paintings, prints, and videos also masterfully resensitize viewers to the deep connections between humanity and nature while considering the impact of technology on both. The artist’s deft layering of forms and temporalities centers our attention on subjects that are otherwise easily overlooked—species and modes of control whose smallness and silence or, conversely, omnipresence, we mistake for insignificance. By reimagining and reanimating, Hirsch stays our gaze on that which is poised to disappear—a delicate purple blossom, a symbiotic relationship, an ecosystem—calling not just for action, but also for celebration: of beauty, of intricacy, of a natural balance so magnificent that it transcends human capacity to colonize.

Although nature has always been a focus of my artistic exploration, a pivotal moment deeply inspired me to study endangered flora, biodiversity threats, and the intricate balances of nature, making it my lifelong pursuit. Ironically, this moment did not occur while immersed in the nature of my home country Brazil, but rather while exploring the fresco of the Villa of Livia, now housed in the National Roman Museum—a truly outstanding work of art.

The quality and innovation of this Roman fresco amazed me, particularly in its use of perspective and focus techniques. The fresco creates the feeling of being inside an exuberant, paradisiacal garden, showcasing many plant species and birds. It challenges seasonal constraints by depicting plants and flowers at their peak. Moreover, it features a rare element for the Roman period, a caged bird. This fresco sparked my curiosity about the species depicted that may no longer exist. 

My background as an engineer has consistently driven me to explore the impact of digital technology on communication and culture. It was probably the convergence of my research into AI tools and coding and my research on the fresco plants that sparked the inception of my PLANT project. This initiative, which integrates AI and blockchain technology, enables the creation of a permanent virtual archive of endangered plant species, preserving the essence of species that may face extinction in the future. It works as a symbolic archive of what we risk losing.

The lyrically unfolding imagery of the video art in the Firmamento series similarly works to uncover cross-temporal information from the colonial past and present, with heavy references to internet culture. In Hirsch’s titular video, Firmamento, the artist has created a visual that meditatively unfolds. As she juxtaposes footage from the natural world with colonial imagery, she layers dotted and geometric configurations generated by digital software. By placing these together, Hirsch emphasizes their constant recurrence and connections in the current time.

In the series Donotclickthru (2016), Debora Hirsch utilizes humor, irony, and the codified language of clickbait to create works that comment on the type of communication facilitated by the internet. Hirsch explores how technology allows for interactivity and the possibility of democratic conversations, it also asks users to pay a price: lack of privacy, overexposure, and a predicted provoked reaction. 

Much like actual clickbait, they enticingly make reference to possible future knowledge through seemingly random images. Rather than potentially exploiting the internet user, these drawings leave the viewer in a humorously contemplative state. Originally presented via an interactive website, Donotclickthru straddles a space between the analog and the digital. 

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