PHOTOGRAPHY
“Je t’aime” Party
- The Cello Maker
Cepi and Stora Enso
Cohabs
A Daily Perspective
TABAS
Info
Round, fat, shrivelled, warty, elongated. Green, striped, ochre, orange or yellow. There has been an explosion of weird and wonderful vegetables in shops over the past few years. It's as if the pumpkin family invited their cousins around. The family is Cucurbitaceae, and the 130 cousins are called pumpkins, squash, melons, cucumbers and other names. They are split between a few large groups: Lagenaria (gourdes), Cucumis (cucumber, melon), Luffa (vegetable sponges), Citrullus (watermelons) and Cucurbita (pumpkins, squash). Some of them get around. Since they can float, the gourds (Lagenaria) were very quickly dispersed by sea currents across the globe. In some areas of South America, Mexico and Central America, they survive without being cultivated by man. Coincidentally, these areas host the greatest range of varieties. Their passport to Europe came through Christopher Columbus. The first evidence of Cucurbita in Europe is a miniature illustration from 1508 in Touraine, in the Loire Valley in France, for the "Book of Hours of Anne of Brittany" (Bilimoff 2001, Paris et al. 2006) and the frescoes of the Villa Farnèse in Rome, completed in 1518. Decades ago, up to 27 species of Cucurbita were found, but crossbreeding experiments showed that half of them were only fertile variants of others. The current taxonomy is based on crossbreeding and recognizes 12 or 13 species. Of these, only three are widely cultivated. Cucurbita Pepo was found in the wild in North America and was widely distributed on the continent in pre-Columbian times. This variety was domesticated in at least two places, one of which was in Mexico about 10,000 years ago (Smith 1997). Cucurbita Maxima was found in the wild in South America but there is no data indicating its presence outside this continent before the arrival of Europeans (Whitaker and Bohn 1950, Nee 1990). Cucurbita Moschata is believed to have originated in the tropical regions of northern South America (Nee 1990, Wessel-Beaver 2000) and appears to have reached the Caribbean before Christopher Columbus.
Polymorpha is the name of a species of Cucurbita, also called Pepo by the botanist Carl von Linné. This enigmatic name felt like a suitable name for our project, as it too has a particular form. It brings together, under a light coating of history, images and recipes. IThis is a quick overview of this particular and polymorphic universe of cucurbits. Thanks to the kind permission of Olivier Senterre, gardener and caretaker of the pumpkin farm in Braine-l'Alleud, we had access for several days to his crops. Sparked by their shapes and colours, we wanted to take different approaches as photographers: like those of the turn of the century; almost scientific recordings; or simple reportage. At each session, we realized that no matter the subject, it is the way of developing the photo that is decisive.