The Lamenting monotropas
A STUDY OF A TRANSITORY PLANT
The lamenting monotropas is a Celebration of the transient stages of a Jasmine flower turning into a monotropa Uniflora. A monotropa is a parasitic semi-transparent crystaline-white plant that has scales for leaves and is native to the province of Ontario. It does not contain chlorophyll and feeds on nutrients from neighboring plants. Aptly also named corpse plant or ghost plant, as it remains buried underground until it’s ready to poke its head out. While jasmines, a common occurrence in the modern and contemporary Egyptian landscape, require plenty of sun and warmth to grow. (The jasmines were brought to Egypt by the French in the 1980s.
The themes I present in this body of work stem from feelings of displacement associated with losing track of the sun in the Canadian winters. Referencing mythology and sensory memory—olfactory in specific—I am caught between the significance of the sun in my culture, while it can still be seen as an enemy. Oscillating between life and death (death is intertwined with life in Egyptian culture) and yearning for the sun and shade.
The themes I present in this body of work stem from feelings of displacement associated with losing track of the sun in the Canadian winters. Referencing mythology and sensory memory—olfactory in specific—I am caught between the significance of the sun in my culture, while it can still be seen as an enemy. Oscillating between life and death (death is intertwined with life in Egyptian culture) and yearning for the sun and shade.
A passage from the narrative:
Nov. 12, Montreal,
But what happens underground? What happens under the earth’s surface? What happens to the roots and how do the plants feed and grow? What happens when the barge travels to meet its Ba?
If the sun is lost, the ground takes over. The gravel, the mud, the sand, the stones, the tiny particles that hug the roots are all disrupted.
A haustorium grows on the stem and the roots are turned into tentacles; I watched the flowers become pale as ghosts, I heard the mourners chanting for them.
But they are not dead, neither are they alive. They are transient.
I visited the village that harvests the sun, at “the time of balsams.” The harvesters chatted and chanted as they picked the sunshine.
I also visited the palm tree village, an island in the middle of the desert that yearns for the shade and is terrified of the sun.
In Between the two villages, there are memories of dates, mangoes and guavas. Memories of odours, scents and pungence. Fields of a plant whose petals split and shed, void of colour and struggling to maintain a smell, neither a parasite nor a jasminium.
Nov. 12, Montreal,
But what happens underground? What happens under the earth’s surface? What happens to the roots and how do the plants feed and grow? What happens when the barge travels to meet its Ba?
If the sun is lost, the ground takes over. The gravel, the mud, the sand, the stones, the tiny particles that hug the roots are all disrupted.
A haustorium grows on the stem and the roots are turned into tentacles; I watched the flowers become pale as ghosts, I heard the mourners chanting for them.
But they are not dead, neither are they alive. They are transient.
I visited the village that harvests the sun, at “the time of balsams.” The harvesters chatted and chanted as they picked the sunshine.
I also visited the palm tree village, an island in the middle of the desert that yearns for the shade and is terrified of the sun.
In Between the two villages, there are memories of dates, mangoes and guavas. Memories of odours, scents and pungence. Fields of a plant whose petals split and shed, void of colour and struggling to maintain a smell, neither a parasite nor a jasminium.
