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An Ocean Garden
The Secret Life of Seaweed
Iselin’s eye for intricately textured photography elevates this book from interesting to captivating.
It tickles and entangles the feet of swimmers. It clogs up boat motors. It snarls and weighs down fishing lines. Most people think of seaweed as a nuisance, despite recent inroads made by nori-wrapped sushi in improving its public reputation. However, Josie Iselin is a powerful seaweed champion who will no doubt increase the curb appeal of these ocean plants with her newest book, An Ocean Garden: The Secret Life of Seaweed. Iselin is an artist, writer, and photographer, and her disparate talents shine in this visually captivating showcase of over 200 of the world’s many species of marine macroalgae.
Each page contains a paragraph or two of edifying information about seaweed biology, its important role in ocean ecosystems (providing 20 percent of the earth’s oxygen for us landlubbers to breathe), and its many uses within different cultures and industries. One learns about seaweed’s transformation into agar, carrageenan, and a host of alginate extracts that have become essential ingredients of many modern food and beauty products ranging from ice cream to face cream.
What is most striking about the book, however, is how Iselin frames these nuggets of prose with photographs of her subject’s delicate forms and translucent colors. From single images of lacy seaweed end papers to dramatic two-page spreads, each image brings a new composition, making the book a visual delight. Iselin’s technical skill in producing highly detailed photographs backlit with strong white light tease out the beauty of feathery fronds and spiky, curling sabers of specimens she gathered herself or borrowed from academic collections. These bright photos contrast nicely with others shot against black backgrounds that make forms and textures really pop.
An Ocean Garden is reminiscent of Victorian-era herbaria, those scrapbooks that amateur naturalists crafted with carefully desiccated plant specimens affixed to their pages. Iselin’s design virtuosity and skills with such technological wonders as flatbed scanners and highly improved photographic equipment bring this modern herbarium to another level and introduce a much greater level of detail.
This beguiling book will appeal to beachcombers, photographers, plant lovers, natural history enthusiasts, and artists of all sorts in search of design inspiration. Iselin’s talents make her seaweed “flowers” dance and sway in An Ocean Garden much like they appear underwater. The author succeeds brilliantly in her stated aim “to reveal the largely unseen forms of ocean flora as a nexus where art and science converge.”
Reviewed by
Rachel Jagareski
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
