Counterculture
Archival inkjet print, 2016

Counterculture adopts the visual language of commercial product photography and redirects it toward an unexpected subject. The photographs present wildflowers commonly dismissed as “weeds,” gathered along the banks of the Vltava River in Prague and photographed in a controlled studio environment typically used to display luxury commodities. Through careful lighting and precise composition, plants associated with neglect and transience appear with an unusual intensity, occupying the visual space usually reserved for desirable consumer objects.

By placing these overlooked plants within the aesthetic regime of advertising, the series reveals how standards of beauty and value are constructed and circulated. What is normally perceived as excess or waste briefly becomes the center of attention, while the polished perfection of mass-produced ornamental flowers is quietly called into question. The title Counterculture evokes gestures of refusal and resistance, proposing an alternative visual economy grounded in locality, impermanence, and unruly growth. In this context, the weed emerges not as a marginal form of life, but as a subtle agent capable of destabilizing dominant hierarchies of taste and value.