“Temple of Nymphaea” project is a scientific/artistic project describing the floricultural breeding process as aesthetics-driven evolution. It involves genotypic and phenotypic analyses and aesthetic/historical exploration to reveal “artificial evolution” of cultivars in the water lilies, which have been associated with “Les Nymphéas” painted by Monet. This ongoing project is collaborative research among Waseda University, The University of Tokyo, and SARL Latour-Marliac. SARL Latour-Marliac, at Temple-sur-lot, France, was originated from the plant nursery which supplied their plants to Monet. This project is developing as an international project between Japan and France, involving researchers from both countries.

    Our focus is on the investigation of the breeding process in horticultural history. People have created diverse cultivars of animals and plants by cross-breeding. From the view of the Darwinian theory, there is no essential difference between evolution and breeding processes. Waterlilies painted on “Les Nymphéas” also came from cross-breeding or were imported from other countries. Such “New species” created in parallel with the artistic trends of Belle Époque directly indicate the complicated relationship among art, science, and modified life in horticulture. It is also noteworthy that the process of breeding in the horticulture, which seems to be peaceful, is also developed in the reproductive organs of plants called “flowers”​​. The reproductive organs deformed vividly and bizarrely are sometimes pointed at the eyes of breeders, enthusiasts and unspecified people looking at the garden.

    In the current age of great development in genomic engineering, human-being has become bringing much more impacts on other species. However, such contemporary methods nowadays are still a continuation of the classical cross-breeding, still maintaining and facilitating the complicated aesthetic/scientific/agricultural relationship. Thus, decoding the history in genetic practice should give us significant insights to reconsider our complicated concept of life. This project would also facilitate some reflections on the relationship between aesthetics and designing life. Hence it relates to exhibit criteria closely. I emphasize the historical aspect of this project. This project has a structure as “meta-natural history” because it will bring biological archives of natural historical (old botanical) research itself. We named this project as “the Temple of Nymphaea project.” “Temple” means “Temple-sur-lot,” where Latour-Marliac located his nursery, and “Nymphea” is the scientific name of water lilies. Therefore, this name indicates not only “the temple of the waterlilies,” but also “Monet’s water lilies in Temple-sur-lot,” simultaneously.