It all started more than twenty years ago, when British artists Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey were installing an exhibition that called for covering one room entirely in live grass. They intentionally left a ladder tilted against a wall for the duration of the show, and were surprised to see a perfect imprint of the object when they removed it from its resting place: the rapidly sprouting turf had grown around the tool, while the stifled bits beneath the object remained yellow.

After a series of extensive experiments with light manipulation and lawn, the duo began using a 35mm Kodak projector to cast light onto sheets of sod. Now, they use a darkroom to grow their fantastical works, using a 2,500-watt projector and custom-made negatives. The results are living, breathing images of photographs the artists mostly take themselves. Thanks to a mutant species of grass discovered by scientists at the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research in Wales, the works are able to stay green for more than a year. Though, it seems that using the traditional kind might be a better option—there’s something magical about the life each portrait holds, isn’t there?

See more of the artists’ work here.