In Focus: "Protean Routes"

A photobook published by Dwaalstêr Editions featuring images by Der Greif community artist Jansen van Staden

“In Focus” is a series of reviews in which we hunt down and peruse our favourite publications off the shelves of our community artists. This month, we are taking a closer look at “Protean Routes,” a photobook published by Dwaalstêr Editions featuring images by Jansen van Staden and Jabulani Dhlamini.

“Protean Routes,” the inaugural publication of the newly established Dwaalstêr Editions, traces the commodification chain of South Africa’s national flower, the King Protea, between South Africa and the Netherlands. Born from the tension between the flower’s cultural significance within South African national identity and its everyday, commodified presence in Dutch markets and flower stalls, “Protean Routes” examines how colonial systems continue to shape our environments – not only politically and economically, but symbolically as well. Weaving together the photographic work of Van Staden and Dhlamini with essays by Pamila Gupta, Evie Evans, Rupert Koopman and David Bek, the book becomes a site of research and critical exchange around decoloniality, sustainability, and cultural restitution.

On the cover, all textual information is confined to a sticker that wraps around the lower part of the spine and extends to roughly one fifth of both the front and back covers, leaving space for the stylised embossing of the King Protea on the front. The latter is sampled from the South African coat of arms, while the colour of the cover, called Fc588, references the standard shade of flower buckets used by Royal FloraHolland. On the back of the sticker, the two country codes and barcode evoke the visual language of shipping labels, echoing the book’s engagement with themes of circulation and extraction. For Brent Dahl and Hanno van Zyl, the South African duo behind Dwaalstêr Editions and the editors and designers of Protean Routes, producing with intention sits at the core of their practice. Their design reveals this commitment: most stylistic choices inform wider themes within the project.

The book opens with an introduction by South-African curator and educator John Fleetwood. Following, the images: produced over a three-month period, they were taken at locations ranging from cultivated fields in South Africa, where the flowers are grown and harvested, and sites where they are picked in the wild, to the flower stalls in the Netherlands where they are sold daily, passing through sorting and contraband inspection facilities in both countries. Across seventy-one spreads, these scenes engage in a visual dialogue, connecting disparate aspects of the flower trade.

The collaboration between the two South African photographers has a strong photojournalistic approach. In their respective practices, van Staden uses photography to explore the complexities of contemporary South Africa, while Dhlamini revisits personal and collective memory drawing on his own experience of growing up during the post-apartheid era. The resulting sequence, presented in a mix of black and white and colour images, juxtaposes the flowers’ vibrant colours with the somber tones of transit spaces.

Throughout the book, the photographs are not accompanied by captions. Instead, they are indexed at the very end. This deliberate, temporary decontextualisation obfuscates the specific context and authorship of each image, threading the works into a whole and inviting viewers to reflect on their own relationship to the narratives and systems presented.

Alongside the photo index, the final section of the book brings together three essays by researchers Pamila Gupta, Evie Evans, David Bek and botanist Rupert Koopman. Addressing the hidden labor behind floral visual culture, the colonial histories embedded in the flower trade,and the impact of global demand on local ecosystems, these texts offer a framework for returning to the images with renewed understanding and perspective. A research-driven project that combines design, photography, and publishing, “Protean Routes” explores what it means to look at this flower and natural world through a post-colonial lens.