In time, the artist began to collect plants and flowers that she kept under observation, watching them change their shape, colour and geometry. Following this period of observation, a series of collages was born where the paper surface was invaded by a decomposed and recomposed plant, which led to the appearance of new illusory species. In relation to this transformation, the artist stated: "in the architecture of new species there is a special dimensionality, as in some places they lose their original texture and shape, turning into chimeras".
"Herbarium" is an imaginary laboratory, where the collection of plants is systematized and arranged either through collage, by means of a sculptural object or in situ through mini-floral installations. The exhibition imagined by Raluca Arnăutu may remind us of Aby Warburg's Mnemosyne Atlas through the combinatory experiments which follow a metonymic, intuitive logic; by juxtaposing images loaded with connotations and placed in a random sequence which may describe what Warburg called "bewegtes Leben" (life in motion or animated life).
"Herbarium" can also be interpreted as an imaginary mapping of the plant element by the way the artist explores the meanings of each constitutive element of the collages. Collages become, as Warburg said about his Atlas, "a space of dynamic thinking" [Denkraum], of compositions, recompositions, superpositions, metamorphoses.
