Kathrin Linkersdorff’s (*1966) artistic photographs illuminate the complex interplay of growth and decay in nature. She stages her works in the fertile interstice between art and science using experimental approaches and process-based methods from microbiology to capture certain points in the organic process of plant decay.

At the heart of Linkersdorff’s work is the aesthetic concept of wabi-sabi, which the artist learned about during a two-year DAAD scholarship in Tokyo. The idea behind wabi-sabi is that ephemerality and imperfection are valuable aspects of life. Today, it’s the driving force behind Linkersdorff’s photographic practice, which depicts the inner architecture of plant organisms in their most fragile state. The organic becomes a visual metaphor for transience as an integral part of the life process.

Linkersdorff is currently an artist-in-residence at Humboldt University. Her latest works, Microverse I/II, explore biological processes of change caused by bacteria.