Algorithmic Botany's goal is to accomplish a functional relationship with nature. To operate like nature rather than simply depict nature. My algorithmic botany drawings use an L system to code with recursive qualities paired with my love for collaging and layering. 

Utlizing Amelia Bennett’s  "Housetop"— Twelve Block Variation Quilt. I explore what it means to acknowledge the layers in which our environment communitcates with us. We learn so much from the world around us when we slow down and take in our surroundings. 

Quilting, a generational practice in Black American culture, dates back thousands of years. Quilting during chattel slavery was used as code to represent safe houses along the Underground Railroad. A quilt hanging from a clothesline or windowsill would often represent safe reside while escaping an oppressive salvery system. These quilts were embedded with a patterned code. By reading the shapes and symbolism sewn into the design, one would better know the area’s immediate dangers or where to head next.

Amelia Bennett (1914-2002) was a quilter from Gee’s Bend, Alabama coming from a long history of quilters. Another Gee’s Bend quilter, Mary Lee Bendolph explains, “People go from museum to museum checking out other people’s work. Sometimes they like it, sometimes they don’t. They go home and try to make it, too. I think that was the same thing we was doing.” Gee’s Bend communal quilting practices show us alternative ways to engage with art and make it truly a community practice.

More Algorthimic Botany Sketches

software::
P5js

work in collaboration with::

School For Poetic Computation 
Winter’ 23 Algorthimic Botany with Sean Catangui