Codex Pacificus

• Prize
• Photographer
  Laara Cerman, Canada

“Codex Pacificus” is a modern interpretation of the millennia-
old art of botanical image making. My focus are the wild plants
of my home British Columbia, Canada. As medicine became
available in concentrated pill form and food easily accessible
through grocery stores rather than directly through forest and
farm, our reliance on wild plants as medicine and as food has
faded and thus our knowledge of local plants has degraded.

I find these plants in unrecognized and under utilized spaces
and I return throughout the year in order to gather the plant in
the entirety of it’s life cycle. These spaces have become lush
with diverse flora which are great habitats for bees, birds, and
butterflies. Frequently these areas full of wild plants are mown
down essentially destroying much needed ecosystems for
pollinators and are thus replaced with a homogeneous, green,
manicured lawn devoid of diversity.

Awards 2016 Sony World Photography Awards, Arts & Culture​ 2015 Exposure Award Book 2014 Applied Arts Magazine