what we were (as we are), 2023
archival pigment prints, speakers, sound
115” x 172” / 292cm x 437cm (overall, installed)
In Northern California on September 9th 2020 the sun never really appeared due to wildfire smoke and the day remained a perpetual dawn with an orange hue. Working with photographs taken in a park on this day the artist revisited each of the locations and played a single guitar chord every time something, such as a bird or butterfly, would enter the frame of view. Speakers, embedded in each photograph, simultaneously play the 6 sound recordings, resulting in a multi-channel musical composition. The surreal feeling of a perpetual state of becoming that the day engendered was mixed with a sense of fascination, anxiety and sadness for the new realities of climate change. The work is a requiem of sorts for a landscape in a state if change, an acknowledgment of the loss of what was and a meditation on the emotional challenges of coming to terms with what will be.
