An art installation by Tina Whelan in Bantry
part of the Ellen Hutchins Festival 2026.
In Vincents shop window, New Street, Bantry
until Sunday 23rd August 2026.
The artist’s statement on this artwork is available HERE.
About the seaweed (algae) From Laura Briscoe, Assistant Curator, Cryptogamic Herbarium, New York Botanical Garden
Asked for suggestions of algae that Ellen found that best showed her contribution to the increased understanding of them, Laura replied with:
Some of the easiest ways to mark “contribution to science” are the algae where Ellen’s collections were either the first, or only known, collections, or were otherwise used as the type collections to describe and name the species, and that she also illustrated. A few that fit those categories are:
Conferva arcta [Drawing held at Library and Archives, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew British Algae – drawings by Ellen Hutchins – folio 157]
Conferva brodiei [Kew 46] published in Lewis Dillwyn’s British Confervae [ Dillwyn plate 107] This is a species Dillwyn described, first collected by James Brodie, but Dillwyn was able to further understand the species based on other collections made by Ellen, Turner and Mrs Griffiths. Dillwyn chose to ask Ellen to produce a drawing of it for his publication.
Conferva hutchinsiae [Kew 146] Dillwyn plate 109]
I am also sort of partial to Litosiphon pusillus [Kew 3], because she illustrated it so beautifully, but she could not have named it, because the species was not published until 1833. (Well, it’s a little more complicated than that, because this species is now considered a synonym of Litosiphon laminariae, but even that was not described until 1819, so point still stands!)
Of Fucus tomentosus, Laura wrote – I love the way she writes about that species in her letters: “Do you really think it a vegetable? I always feel when I touch it, as if I was giving pain to something that had feeling. When I have a specimen laid out, it will sometimes roll on the paper & close again, or when I separate two branches, they will close again.” (Ellen Hutchins to Dawson Turner, 14 March 1808, held in Dawson Turner Correspondence, Trinity College Cambridge), observations which Turner includes in his book Historia Fucorum.
Tina Whelan’s website is HERE.
Find more on Ellen Hutchins on the website www.ellenhutchins.com HERE.