How Long is Forever is a new body of work produced during lockdown. The series continues the aesthetical search which End of Summer, Could the grass remember and Llwyn Celyn engage with. However, unlike previous bodies of work How long is forever engages with the altered relationship with time many of us experienced over the last year. The composition and scale of the images are part of a deeper exploration of the durational nature of flowers; their (and by proxy our own) relationship with the quantitative and qualitative nature of time. Each a kind of promise, that reoccurring and on-going promise that plants offer us, of time spent, time lost and time still to come.
These large-scale images enable a shift in perspective, bringing to light details not normally available to the naked eye or easily observed in a passing moment. Instead, the images draw you in, asking you to take the time to contemplate them and in turn yourself.
The durational nature of this body of work is not just in and of the time captured by the images, but also in the processes and technique involved in creating them. Each image is a kind of imprint of the labour, care and circumstances which have brought these specific plants into being and into the possession of Brancher. Every plant has been grown in Brancher’s garden, whether from seed or seedling they take weeks, months and sometimes years to develop. Many of the depicted plants are also gifts from dear friends or family, each relationship nurtured like a plant and equally subject to the same promise of time.
E. Brancher