"...There Is Still Poetry" collages

Over and Over and, 2018

Endgame, 2018

On Being Blue, 2018

Ore Transport Station, 2018

Manufacturing A Rise And Fall, 2018

Abandoned Mine Texas 2, 2017

Enough Is When Is Enough, 2018

Eagle Mine in the Morning, 2016

Abandoned Mine Texas, 2017

Phosphate Mine, 2018

Between Bears Ears and Daneros Mine, 2018

A Silence Contained for Years, 2018

Ash Flower, 2018

Holding Not Having (After Robin Messing), 2018

I Held My Breath and Didn't Hear Anything, 2018

 

Photography and contemporary art connect me to the complexities and contradictions of life largely removed from the supply chains that make it up: toxicities that I usually do not immediately see but may feel the aftermath of, the health impacts from, and the historic and psychological connections photography has with militarization. It’s also so much more, it’s memory, culture, storytelling.

It’s been quoted that at least 1.7 trillion digital photographs are taken every year now - a monumental cultural archive. I try to image some of the complexity I see in my studio and photographic practice as a reminder of the reverence I need to have for each image I take: my dependence on and reverence for storytelling through photographs.

While I live under an economic system that externalizes costs to the environment and the poor, how can I engage in other ways of bringing forth possibilities for being with (but not being paralyzed by) these deep contradictions? Every decision needs to be intentional, from a material ethic to forms of engaging with the world. Every photograph needs to be considered and valued for everything it holds, what is seen and unseen.