Zarina Holmes

Homegrown Series by Zarina Holmes
Homegrown Series is a still life photography about the power of objects, directing the focus on destruction, creation, and longevity through the spontaneous compositions of my homegrown flowers.

The creative process from this project starts from cultivating the plants, exposing them to the natural weather conditions to capturing them in discarded containers.

The aim isn’t to achieve slick results, but instead celebrating the imperfections, natural degradations and appreciating beauty in decay. This is centred around Japanese art philosophy of “mujo” (transience) and “wabi-sabi” (imperfection).

The series feature the flowers that I grew at home in west London, photographed against the paper waste backdrops that I accumulated from home shopping. I began with knowing little about flower arrangements, experimenting discarded jars and various drink bottles.

The project started as a casual experiment in 2018. It was propelled into another level of observation during the pandemic lockdown. I discovered two important things: that I’m a gifted amateur gardener and a prolific accumulator of rubbish from home shopping activities.

Between life contemplations and listening to pop music, I planted bulbs and harvested homegrown flowers throughout spring and summer. Then I photographed them in upcycled bottles against discarded wrapping papers, acknowledging the fact that I’m both the creator and destroyer of my own environment.

I worked with any successful blooms that cropped up throughout flowering seasons. Towards the end my London-based project, I started to introduce compositional concept that I learned from my ikebana studies.