Celebrating the humble workplace plant in Luke Stephenson's new series for clothing store Other

The Friday afternoon routine here at It’s Nice That is a simple one and the last 20 minutes of our working week are spent tidying up the studio (usually to the strains of Bill Wymna’s Je Suis un Rockstar). One of the key jobs at this time is watering our two plants which keep watch over us and though I can’t really explain why, I am oddly attached to them (I have a suspicion my colleagues are too). There’s just something quite life-affirming about their presence and tending to their simple needs can be quietly meditative.

It may have been these kind of qualities that drew photographer Luke Stephenson to documenting the forlorn plants found in receptions and lobbies for his new show Foyer Fauna for Other (the recently-launched clothing store from b store duo Matthew Murphy and Kirk Beattie).

Sometimes Luke shoots the plants in situ but at others he removes them and photographs them against bright coloured backgrounds, stripping away the context and making the plant the star.They can be seen as token gestures, a flash of green in our otherwise grey desk-orientated lives but under Luke’s lens they become something far more interesting.