Edwin Roseno

Kastuba Poinsettia (Euphorbia Pulchorbiaseae) (from ‘Green Hypermarket’ series) 2011–2012

Edwin Roseno’s ‘Green hypermarket’ 2011–12 is a series of images that uses combinations of everyday materials — plants and consumer packaging — to question the relationships and associations that they have in our lives. Using cans, bottles, cartons and plastic containers bought in supermarkets, Roseno potted a variety of plants sourced from friends, neighbours and local nurseries. The photographs present the symbolic dichotomies of natural and manufactured, renewable and discarded, local and global, and ancient and modern.

The images contrast our emotional connections to both commercial products and plant life, with the realisation that some consumer goods are more recognisable than many plant species. ‘Green hypermarket’ is a poignant reminder of economic and environmental tensions that are increasingly relevant today, particularly in the growing economies of Asia, where urbanisation, globalisation and mass consumerism have evolved rapidly, and younger generations grow up in societies that no longer rely on traditional or local customs.