Katie Paterson

Evergreen
2022

An embroidery representing all the extinct flowers of this moment.

The world is living through a human-induced sixth mass extinction. Plants set the foundation for nearly all life on Earth yet the number of plants that have disappeared from the wild is more than twice the number of extinct birds, mammals and amphibians combined. Evergreen is a collaboration with leading scientists, naturalists, botanists and herbariums, collecting together all existing imagery of extinct plants from across the world and across centuries. Botanical images have been drawn, and woven together in a textile work.

The artwork depicts every extinct flowering plant, brought together in an embroidery, reflective of the Arts and Crafts movement, whose core characteristics were the importance of nature as inspiration, and the value of simplicity, utility and beauty. Evergreen represents a reverence for nature, and mourning for all that is, or soon to be, lost.