Chelsea Physic Garden

Research-led project within a living botanical collection

Embodied Surfaces is a research-led project examining relationships between plants and the individuals who choose to carry them permanently on the body.

Its first iteration took place at Chelsea Physic Garden. The project was developed through an extended period of on-site research within the garden’s living collection, dedicated to medicinal, herbal, and useful plants. The collection includes historically organised medicinal beds used for plant study and interpretation. Medicinal species were selected through direct observation and historical research, considering their botanical properties, uses, and histories. This research formed the basis for the project’s conceptual and visual framework.

An open call invited members of the public to submit plant-related narratives connected to healing plants and personal experience. Over 200 applications were received. A selected participant was tattooed on site at the garden, with the final composition developed in response to the preceding research and the individual collaboration.

The tattoo session was the project’s main public outcome, activating the garden by bringing tattooing into its public programme. By introducing tattooing as an entry point, the project offered alternative ways of encountering the garden’s medicinal collection and historical focus, reaching audiences not typically engaged through conventional public programme formats.

In parallel, individuals tattooed as part of my practice over several years were invited to take part in filmed conversations, reflecting on their tattoos and their ongoing relationships with the plants they carry. These films extend the project past the live event, forming a set of archival material that places Embodied Surfaces within a broader enquiry into relationships between plants and humans.