Androsace Rioxana

La Rioja is currently the only place on the planet where you can find specimens of 'Androsace Rioxana', a small endangered plant that in 2021 we 'recovered' digitally through an augmented reality filter for the design festival Lo Visual. Here, AR serves as a tool for resurrection and remembrance. A way of getting closer to this species without putting it at risk. A virtual space from which to review our ecosystemic memory.

Two small enclaves on the peaks of La Demanda in La Rioja are the only places on the planet where a small plant, the androsace rioxana, lives. These plants, barely 3 cm in diameter, which were ubiquitous in the region centuries ago, are now extremely rare and difficult to find. Everything seems to indicate that after the last ice age, and with the retreat of the ice, the populations of a genus of plants called androsace began to migrate towards the summits, so that they became isolated from each other, evolving differently. Moreover, the fragility of their habitat and the changes caused by our presence place the androsella in a delicate situation.

Human life is often too short to see with our own eyes some of the changes and transformations that we cause to nature. Perhaps this way of visualising the past can help us think of possibilities for the future in the face of this accelerated life that threatens the survival of our environment.

In 2005, the androsace rioxana was declared in danger of extinction, with a population of barely 300 specimens in the whole region.

At first we considered using the technique of photogrammetry to digitally 'scan' a specimen of the plant and preserve it in the virtual environment. After further research on the subject and detecting that one of the main reasons for the disappearance of the species had been precisely the access on foot to the few areas where specimens are still found, we decided to change our strategy and create a digital replica of the plant from the existing botanical documentation: drawings, photographs and records obtained from the archives of the Ministry of Ecological Transition and the Botanical Collection of the University of Valencia.