Lost Specimens is an ongoing digital herbarium for ‘Once Upon A Garden’, a digitally composited garden presenting a dystopian projection of a likely outcome of global warming. It depicts a world where humans now have to live with simulated images of plants and flowers because they have all disappeared from earth. It asks whether the preservation of nature is compatible with the goals of industrialised and industrialising societies, and in general is a reflection on what gets left behind in our pursuit of progress. ‘Once Upon a Garden’ is ultimately a GAN (generative adversarial network) trained on thousands of images of extinct and endangered flora from the Sahel region, where Linda was born and lives. It was created with the intent to be an installation that mimics walking through an artificial garden, and all the sorrow and beauty that this implies. Lost Specimens features the dominant species that emerged from training the GAN model for the project. While processing the outputs from the Once Upon a Garden GAN, some dominant species started to emerge. It felt important to record them in separate files, much like flowers are recorded in the herbariums that were critical in the conception of this project. Lost Specimens re-interprets digitally elements of traditional herbariums and adds a new layer of information: encrypted information the scale and spread of cereal and animal farming and its contribution to the loss of wild plant life over the past few decades.

Linda Dounia is an artist, designer, and curator examining the intricate interplay between tangible and intangible structures through her expansive creative practice that the art of craft-making in dialogue with technology, acrylic, ink, pastels, vector, video, GANs, and more recently, Javascript, including languages like p5.js – that often fuse harmoniously to craft her unique expressions. With a keen eye on technology's impact, Linda, who is Senegalese-Lebanese and currently based in Dakar, delves into how it can either perpetuate inequality or stimulate reflection on the profound philosophical dimensions of techno-capitalism. A notable achievement in Linda's journey is the unveiling of 'Spannungsbogen' in 2022, a series exhibited at Quantum Art. This monumental release marks the first expansive AI collection by an African woman, a compelling effort resonating with reflections on the biases ingrained in facial recognition technology and the dearth of non-Western perspectives within the realm of AI-generated art. Dounia's artistic aspirations are entwined with envisioning futures steeped in solarpunk ideals, embracing degrowth, and championing decolonization. The echoes of her creativity have reverberated across renowned platforms and traditional auction houses like Christie’s, Unit London, Art X Lagos, Partcours, Art Basel Miami, The Dakar Biennale, Artsy NFT, Digital Art Fair Asia, and Art Dubai, where her work has found its vibrant stage.

Linda Dounia Private Collection