Ann Marie Schneider

Art + Landscape 

Studio:  Artifice & Artifact  +  Site:  Interventions & Social Practice


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EQUISETUM RETURNS

A series of monoprints that envision a neobotanical future by resurrecting the paleobotanical past as a disruptor to the built environment - raising questions about how we plant, cultivate, build and restore.   Sumi ink monoprints, watercolor, and pen/india ink on watercolor paper.


On Equisetum: 
350 million years ago, horsetails (genus Equisetum) reached heights of 50-100 feet.  These ancestors, called calamites, were a key species of the lush swamp forests that became coal deposits through milllenia of decomposition and alchemy.  Ironically, these mammoth plants sequestered high levels of carbon from the atmosphere, creating an oxygen rich environment that could support humans.  That same carbon is now being returned to the atmosphere by humans through the consumption of fossil fuel.  Equisetum still exist today, though  much smaller.  They are uniquely resilient and thrive in nutrient poor soils created by human settlement.






















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© Ann Marie Schneider, Schneiderwerks LLC, all rights reserved