Recording Nature: Plant Hunters, Artists, and the Story of Discovery
Date: 17 May 2026
Time: 12:00 – 14:00
Location: SALT Beyoğlu
Part 1 | 12:00 – 13:00
Seeing and Knowing: Women Botanical Artists and the Construction of Knowledge in the 17th–19th Centuries
Burçin Çıngay
Women botanical artists who played a critical role in the production of botanical knowledge between the 17th and 19th centuries did more than create aesthetic representations; they made direct contributions to the identification, classification, and circulation of plants. Through figures such as Maria Sibylla Merian, Elizabeth Blackwell, Anna Atkins, Marianne North, and Margaret Meen, this talk examines how visualisation contributed to scientific epistemology. The presentation invites us to reconsider the relationship between "seeing" and "knowing" a plant.
Collecting, Drawing, Transporting: Plant Hunters in Anatolia and the Testimony of the Drawn Line
Ersin Karabacak
From the 16th century onwards, Anatolia became an intense field of exploration and collection for plant hunters, travellers, and artists. Figures such as Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, Ferdinand Bauer, Pierre Edmond Boissier, and Pierre Alexandrowitsch de Tschihatscheff documented the plants they collected in Anatolia not only through herbarium specimens but also through detailed drawings.
In particular, Pierre Edmond Boissier's Flora Orientalis became a foundational reference for the scientific identification of Anatolian and Eastern Mediterranean plants and their introduction into European botanical literature. In this process, drawing moved beyond being a tool for documenting plant morphology, becoming an essential means of transferring and reproducing knowledge. Plants sent from Anatolia to Europe — particularly bulbous and medicinal species — transformed both scientific literature and horticultural culture. The presentation examines this close relationship between plant-collecting practices and drawing from an Anatolia-centred perspective, revealing that discovery is not only a matter of geography but also of representation.
From the Field to the Flora: P. H. Davis's Journeys through Anatolia
Selçuk Tuğrul Körüklü
Botanical work carried out in Anatolia during the 20th century took on a new dimension through Peter Hadland Davis's field expeditions spanning many years. The transformation of plant knowledge gathered in the field into a systematic whole formed the foundation for writing the flora of Turkey. This process made possible not only the discovery of new species but also an understanding of the geographical distribution, variation, and ecological relationships of plants. This body of scientific work — shaped by challenging field conditions, limited means of communication, and local collaborations — demonstrates that knowledge is built directly from the field. The presentation focuses in particular on Davis's final journey to Turkey in 1982, discussing the field experiences, plant-collecting processes, and the transformation of knowledge from the field into the Flora of Turkey and the East Aegean Islands.
Q&A | 12:45 – 13:00
Break | 13:00 – 13:15
Part 2 | 13:15 – 14:00
Reading the Plant: The Journey of Botanical Illustration from Herbarium to Scientific Representation
Gülnur Ekşi Bona
Scientific botanical illustration is an interdisciplinary process of production situated between direct observation and herbarium material. The morphological characters critical to the identification of plants are evaluated comparatively through both living specimens and herbarium collections. In this process, herbaria — particularly type specimens and reference collections — serve as a primary resource for ensuring the scientific accuracy of the artist's work. The artist then transforms this data into a visual language through selection, distillation, and emphasis. The presentation examines the processes of scientific botanical illustration in Turkey — including botanist–artist collaboration, the use of herbaria, and methods of morphological analysis — and discusses the role of drawing in the construction of scientific knowledge.
Journey to the East: Illustrating Plants in the Field
Işık Güner
As part of Işık Güner's An Iris Journey project, ongoing since 2017, this talk tells the story of the Sason iris — the most delicate, most elusive, and most challenging of the irises she has tracked in eastern Turkey. In this presentation, the excitement of encountering a plant in difficult field conditions interweaves with the process of observing it and illustrating it with scientific accuracy. Through the lens of the Sason iris, we take a closer look at both the emotional and technical layers of a journey that demands patience, attention, and deep observation.
Q&A | 13:45 – 14:00