Deer have made their home in Switzerland’s largest cemetery, the Hörnli in Basel, feeding on the flowers left on gravestones. Their numbers have grown so large that the city spends over 120,000 euros annually to replace the plants consumed daily. Cemetery officials, overwhelmed by the situation, have proposed culling the animals, sparking heated controversy among the local population.

For opponents, including Brigitte Bardot, killing these animals—living beings in their own right—simply because they eat flowers meant to honor the memory of the deceased is unacceptable. For the authorities, however, action must be taken to control the unchecked proliferation of deer in a space dedicated to human remembrance.

This seemingly anecdotal event raises philosophical questions about humanity’s relationship with the rest of the living world. To create this series, the artist first photographed the deer, then gathered flowers from the Hörnli cemetery himself (hoping not to be mistaken for a target by the gamekeeper). He extracted pigments from the rose petals to produce a light-sensitive organic emulsion, which he used to create photographic prints using this alternative process.

A project in collaboration with Arguiñe Escandón.