This project explores what is popularly called "wise adornment." To protect the home from hostile external forces, our ancestors surrounded themselves with protective charms. Nearly all of these were inspired by the plant world. The object of study is botanical motifs in building facades, window frames, stone carvings, and tiles. The project pays special attention to endangered plant species; their preservation is no less important than the conservation of the cultural heritage of the Yaroslavl region.

Through botanical drawing, the creation of casts of architectural details, and herbariums, I investigate ornament and its natural origins. By juxtaposing real plants of the Yaroslavl region with their architectural interpretations, I explore how nature is preserved within the urban environment as a form of cultural memory.

The aim of the project is the creation of an archive of plant symbols, in which I examine architecture and botany as interconnected forms of storing knowledge about a place — where natural and cultural processes continue to exist within one another.