Waveforms Statement

The series waveforms ​consists of photographs and photographic assemblages that engage with the complicated relationship between humans and the natural world. These works investigate themes such as resource extraction, landscape augmentation and the role of photography in the domination and control of land. This series takes as its genesis conflicting positions regarding the environment as exemplified by the “Green Revolution” and the modern environmental movement. The first promotes the idea that humans are capable of innovating our way out of any potential environmental emergency while the second posits that the earth has certain limits that we cross at our own peril. The source images are appropriated (mined) from various resources such as NASA and the USGS. The aerial images, taken via satellite, are essentially authorless and represent the detached relationship with the natural world that has led us to our current state of environmental crisis. The two approaches to image making employed in waveforms, Augmented Landscapes and Performed Landscapes explore tension between human ingenuity and the limits of natural systems. Augmented Landscapes are physically manipulated photographic assemblages. Using frames, string and other materials a dimensional topography is created upon the previously flat photographic surface. Performed Landscapes are studio photographs of prints that have been made dimensional by way of a physical intervention such as cutting, ripping or folding.

To combat climate change we must use all the tools at our disposal: technological innovation, behavior modification and education to name just a few. The role of the arts in addressing this urgent need cannot be dismissed or underestimated. In times of social, cultural and environmental upheaval the arts have long been a vehicle for engaging a population on a visceral, emotional level by imagining possible futures, interpreting the present and highlighting the need for increasing levels of responsibility and care.