Using the style of Dutch Golden Age painters as a jumping-off point, and objects passed down to me from my Dutch grandmother’s family, I photograph flowers grown in my downtown Toronto neighborhood alongside the flora and fauna that live and thrive in our urban environment. While the 17th-century artworks were made in an era of expansion and exploitation, these images strive to preserve what is now threatened by climate change. The birds are loaned to me from the Royal Ontario Museum, and insects from the Cambridge Butterfly Conservatory. The images are a reflection of both my heritage and the city that I live in and are printed and presented at larger-than-life scale to render these fragile subjects in a manner that is powerful, provocative, and immersive.