In his new erotic zine, Phytophile, photographer Bela Borsodi explores a woman’s obsession for plants
There is a series of photographs on Bela Borsodi’s website that shows a model lovingly clutching and caressing items such as a handbag and boot in all manner of sensual bordering on erotic ways. Replace the accessories with a plant, switch the images to black and white and you’ll begin to understand the thinking behind the Austrian-born photographer’s latest series, Phytophile (literally ‘a lover of plants’), recently published as a zine by Dashwood Books.
The new project, which features his friend, Faina, posing with plants in all sorts of semi-erotic ways, is definitely not a fashion story, says Borsodi, who is based in New York. It was nice to have the opportunity to do something outside of a fashion context and everything that comes with it, he says, and when Dashwood Books asked him to be part of their zine series he jumped at the invitation.
“Every photographer has a billion things that don’t get published or other projects that are half realised, but I thought ‘no, I want to go with something [new]’, so I thought for a while about what I could do,” he says. “I collect books on erotica and some friends said, ‘why don’t you do something on that?’ I thought, ‘OK, yes, but what will I do on erotica? Just to make photographs of pretty girls doing sexy poses, that’s fine, but what else can I add? How can I do a different take on that?’”
The answer came in a flash of inspiration: what if the girl had a fetish for plants? “It was really a quick thought,” he says. “I could have a girl who was actually attracted to plants. What can the girl and the plant do together? They are obsessed with each other in a sexual way.” There is no shortage of images of beautiful women with plants, adds Borsodi, but “I’d never seen anything where the plants are her fetish. I wanted this to be crude and rude and for her to be the protagonist, to have the control.”
As it turns out, there is a whole “plant fucking, tree fucking” movement called ecosexuality, says Borsodi casually. “It is hippy, tree-hugging stuff, but they don’t only hug trees, they sometimes fuck them, and there are girls with moss between their legs becoming at one with nature.” Borsodi was less interested in going down the eco route and more into exploring how his subject could be cute and sexy with the plants, and how “she doesn’t give a shit about anyone else”. She is wrapped up in her own world as we, the voyeurs, look on.
“I wanted this to be her story,” says Borsodi. “That’s why she never looks at the camera other than in one image at the very end of the book when she confronts the viewer. I wanted her to let loose, and to explore what could happen.”
Phytophile by Bela Borsodi is published by Dashwood Books.