Anthocyanins are red or indigo pigments that supply antioxidants and photoprotectants, which help a plant tolerate climate-related stresses such as droughts.
© 2021 SULLIVAN CN, KOSKI MH
An artistic research project called Plant Futures imagines how a single species of flower might evolve in response to climate change between 2023 and 2100—and invites us to reflect on the complex, long-term impacts of our warming world. The project has created one flower for every year from 2023 to 2100. The form of each one is data-driven, based on climate projections and research into how climate influences flowers’ visual attributes.
More ultraviolet pigment protects flowers’ pollen against increasing ozone levels.
MARCO TODESCO
Under unpredictable weather conditions, the speculative flowers grow a second layer of petals. In botany, a second layer is called a “double bloom” and arises from random mutations.
COURTESY OF ANNELIE BERNER
Plant Futures began during an artist residency in Helsinki, where I worked closely with the biologist Aku Korhonen to understand how climate change affected the local ecosystem. While exploring the primeval Haltiala forest, I learned of the Circaea alpina, a tiny flower that was once rare in that area but has become more common as temperatures have risen in recent years. Yet its habitat is delicate: The plant requires shade and a moist environment, and the spruce population that provides those conditions is declining in the face of new forest pathogens. I wondered: What if the Circaea alpina could survive in spite of climate uncertainty? If the dark, shaded bogs turn into bright meadows and the wet ground dries out, how might the flower adapt in order to survive? This flower’s potential became the project’s grounding point.
The author studying historical Circaea samples in the Luomus Botanical Collections.
COURTESY OF ANNELIE BERNER
Outside the forest, I worked with botanical experts in the Luomus Botanical Collections. I studied samples of Circaea flowers from as far back as 1906, and I researched historical climate conditions in an attempt to understand how flower size and color related to a year’s temperature and precipitation patterns.
I researched how other flowering plants respond to changes to their climate conditions and wondered how the Circaea would need to adapt to thrive in a future world. If such changes happened, what would the Circaea look like in 2100?
We designed the future flowers through a combination of data-driven algorithmic mapping and artistic control. I worked with the data artist Marcin Ignac from Variable Studio to create 3D flowers whose appearance was connected to climate data. Using Nodes.io, we made a 3D model of the Circaea alpina based on its current morphology and then mapped how those physical parameters might shift as the climate changes. For example, as the temperature rises and precipitation decreases in the data set, the petal color shifts toward red, reflecting how flowers protect themselves with an increase in anthocyanins. Changes in temperature, carbon dioxide levels, and precipitation rates combine to affect the flowers’ size, density of veins, UV pigments, color, and tendency toward double bloom. 2025: Circaea alpina is ever so slightly larger than usual owing to a warmer summer, but it is otherwise close to the typical Circaea flower in size, color, and other attributes. 2064: We see a bigger flower with more petals, given an increase in carbon dioxide levels and temperature. The bull’s-eye pattern, composed of UV pigment, is bigger and messier because of an increase in ozone and solar radiation. A second tier of petals reflects uncertainty in the climate model. 2074: The flower becomes pinker, an antioxidative response to the stress of consecutive dry days and higher temperatures. Its size increases, primarily because of higher levels of carbon dioxide. The double bloom of petals persists as the climate model’s projections increase in uncertainty. 2100: The flower’s veins are densely packed, which could signal appropriation of a technique leaves use to improve water transport during droughts. It could also be part of a strategy to attract pollinators in the face of worsening air quality that degrades the transmission of scents. 2023—2100: Each year, the speculative flower changes. Size, color, and form shift in accordance with the increased temperature and carbon dioxide levels and the changes in precipitation patterns. In this 10-centimeter cube of plexiglass, the future flowers are “preserved,” allowing the viewer to see them in a comparative, layered view.
COURTESY OF ANNELIE BERNER
Based in Copenhagen, Annelie Berner is a designer, researcher, teacher, and artist specializing in data visualization.
