- Title: Guia: Systema Naturæ
- Author: Catarina Leitão
- Publisher: Catarina Leitão
- Dimensions: 21x36 cm
- Number of Pages: 56
- Edition: 4 signed and numbered
- Publishing Date: 2012
- Place: Lisboa, Portugal
- Media: Laser prints, japanese Four-Hole binding with wood structure.
- Synopsis: This publication was produced as a guide to the exhibition "Systema Naturæ” at Galeria Carlos Carvalho Arte Contemporânea, Lisbon, 2012. "Guia: Systema Naturæ” compiles drawings of 45 ficcional botanical species and their names. "In my research, I create and draw botanical species crossed with mechanical and constructed shapes. Like hybrid plants, they allude to the manipulation of the natural world. Using scientific drawings from different periods, visits to herbaria and botanical gardens, I am composing a parallel fictional science. Once my new species are invented, carefully and didactically depicted, I proceed to their taxonomic classification. This classification has been developed from the study of taxonomical rules and traditional systems, which are based on the species' external morphology.?Making use of Latin epithets that describe characteristics of genera and species, I transform them, combining them with translated contemporary words, looking for composites that create new meanings. The results are either absurd, ironic, ambivalent, sometimes amusing, but always follow the rules of taxonomic nomenclature and of the use of Botanical Latin. My species are then grouped in families which are also newly named." (Text by Catarina Leitão)
- Author's Website:http://www.catarinaleitao.net
- Notes and Collections: Biblioteca da Universidade de Aveiro