Exposure
Desert
(noun)
1 : arid land with usually sparse vegetation
2 : a place or area that does not have something interesting or important
(adjective)
1 : remote and uninhabited or only sparsely inhabited
(Merriam-Webster, n.d.)
Rather than seeking to illustrate directly climate change, in the first part of this ongoing project, I am interested in exploring the tension between what can be observed — Nature’s grandeur in a place seemingly devoid of life — and what can be sensed —a territory filled with silence and open space— something difficult to pin down, suspended somewhere between beauty and threat.
This work is an attempt to reflect on exposure, impermanence and vulnerability.
How could a place that was once a lake transform and erode into one of the harshest environments on Earth? In human time, this transformation unfolded slowly; within the vastness of Nature’s time, it is little more than the blink of an eye.
When these images were taken, in April 2022, my partner and I were travelling through inland California. His heart was heavy with harsh news about his family. As we walked through Death Valley, I could sense him holding back emotions but I knew he felt stripped away, raw and exposed, facing this new situation.
These images constitute the first stage of the project: an approach to Death Valley both as a physical territory and as a psychological space — a landscape increasingly defined by extremes.
The second stage will begin once these photographs are printed and exposed to the elements — sun, rain, wind and the passage of time. As they gradually deteriorate, they will be photographed again, creating a second body of images shaped not only by my gaze, but by the elements themselves.
