New Postdoctoral Fellow explores the significance of lavender in photographic history
Dr Epha J. Roe has been appointed Postdoctoral Fellow in Photography, Nature and Ecology at HDK-Valand, in collaboration with the Hasselblad Foundation. Over two years, Roe will develop a practice-based research project which explores the significance of lavender in photographic history, queer culture, and ecologies.
Epha J. Roe is an artist, photographer and writer whose research-based practice operates at the intersection of art, science and history. Roe’s practice explores the cultural history of plants, the materiality of photography and the relationship between humans and the more-than-human world.
Roe completed a practice-based PhD at the University of Brighton in 2025, in which the English oak was central to an investigation into how plants can be understood as active co-authors in photographic processes.
– I am particularly excited by the postdoc's cross-collaborative framework and look forward to drawing on Gothenburg's rich ecosystem to inform and root my project's practice-based research., Epha J. Roe says.
Lavender in early photochemistry
The new research project at HDK-Valand has the working title Traces of Inflorescence: Photographic Encounters with Lavender and Queer Ecology through Material, Theory and Practice.
The project takes as its point of departure traces of lavender in early photochemistry, including its relationship to Nicéphore Niépce’s photographic processes from 1826, as well as the plant’s later significance within queer culture. In doing so, the project asks what a nature photograph can be: not simply an image of nature, but a material, sensory and historically charged meeting point between plants, bodies, technologies and cultures.
The project connects with the ongoing research collaboration Plants & Symbiosis: Expanding Photography between HDK-Valand and the Hasselblad Foundation, as well as HDK-Valand’s research cluster Environment: Ecology and Climate Challenges. Roe will also explore potential collaborations with local and regional partners.
The postdoctoral fellowship is part of an established collaboration between HDK-Valand and the Hasselblad Foundation, aimed at strengthening and developing research in photography. The joint postdoctoral initiative focuses on artistic and photographic practices that engage with nature, the environment, ecology and climate-related challenges.
– The project’s combination of artistic methods and theoretical perspectives is also fundamental to the international research and educational environment in photography that HDK-Valand and the Hasselblad Foundation have established and continue to develop, with Gothenburg as its base, says Niclas Östlind, Assistant Head of Department for Research at HDK-Valand.
Read the press release here: Epha J. Roe blir ny postdoktor i fotografi, natur och ekologi
Dr Epha J. Roe är konstnär, fotograf, forskare och skribent. Roe har en praktikbaserad doktorsexamen från University of Brighton, en master i Art History and Museum Curating with Photography från University of Sussex och en BA-examen i Photography and Video från De Montfort University.
Sedan 2025 har Roe undervisat på kandidatprogrammet Photography vid Hereford College of Arts och har tidigare undervisat i fotografi vid University of Brighton. Roes forskning och konstnärliga praktik behandlar bland annat fotografisk teori och historia, växtintelligens, queer ekologi, hållbara fotografiska processer och relationen mellan människor och växter.