Neeta Madahar & Melanie Rose were originally commissioned to make new work for the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery's exhibition, The Moon and Smile (2017), invited to respond to a period in the 1840s and 1850s, when Swansea was at the centre of early experiments in photography worldwide.
John Dillwyn Llewelyn (1810–1882) played a leading role in nearby Penllergare, as did his wife, Emma (1808–1881), cousin of photography’s inventor, William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877). Dillwyn’s sister, Mary (1816–1906), captured the earliest photograph of a smile and his daughter, Thereza (1834–1926), the first photograph of the moon.
The family’s passion for growing orchids became the inspiration for Neeta Madahar & Melanie Rose. Photographing the ruins of the Orchid House at Penllergare, they then studied family correspondence in the archives at Kew Gardens and identified forty species of orchids grown at Penllergare. Selecting eight orchids, they worked experimentally with traditional and digital processes to make one-off silver gelatin prints, giving the flowers an almost uncanny presence.
