(selection from series) 2020.
Never really arriving anywhere, making mundane of natural awe, and recording the lonely-feeling context of my travel, this series is part diary and part documentary of my life spent pursuing meaning and belonging in wild places with others. Mostly looking out from within the insulation of what is essentially a spaceship, the vantage point of the minivan (or otherwise) in this series, contains myself and potentially others, but we don’t really know. Technically, I think it looks lazy and feels honest. I could not even get out of the car to take a decent photo of a well-lit landscape, even after driving for hours. Despite the collective imagination’s knee-jerk to the nostalgic fun road trip trope here, these images don’t necessarily make me want to return. Instead, a weird obligation to still be stunned can bubble up as a New Englander in the Wild West. Managing the tendency of semi-intentional dulling of being blown away after both working and recreating in places of beauty in order to convey professionalism and competency to others is a cultural and linguistic conflict (and irony) I feel strongly when I engage with these images. This series is ultimately evidence of complexity. A life that includes the confusion and doubt that is part of the rosy adventure narrative I tell myself about myself, no matter how much I drive around.
Wood, glass, stone, rubber, steel. 2012
Constructed for my final project of an environmental studies senior seminar course focusing on subsistence-based climate change solutions, the door-framed materials stand in a field.
