Nicotiana rustica

This image of a laboring, hybrid form is at once grotesque and generative. Through its making, the artist explored how an unrecorded colonial history can be recovered through and within her own body using the power of plants.

Before drawing, Lin first ingested her black-brown ink. For her, this was a way to reconnect with the Chinese laborers derogatively known as “Coolies” who were forced to cultivate nicotiana rustica, a potent form of tobacco, on Caribbean plantations in the 19th century. With the tincture of gall ink traditionally used in early modern European documents and nicotiana rustica in her body, Lin recorded her vision on the page now before us, allowing us to see a history once invisible.