Public Project
Innermost House (WIP)
Images made near Souris, Prince Edward Island (2013-24)
Layers of time past are hinting at their secrets. The walls of this old homestead are cracking, peeling, bleeding. As an imperfect structure, it is always shifting: settling into itself. Meanwhile, the forest fluctuates between oozing life and dusty death, reclaiming abandoned farmland alongside potato fields still tended. The soil remembers what we cannot. This enduring landscape has a quiet intelligence of its own, within which we, as corporeal beings, can only momentarily dwell.
In these semi-fantastical photographs, I once again picture the Kidson farmstead on Prince Edward Island, a place that I have revisited since early childhood. Each return adds another layer of green to a seemingly endless summer. Despite its physical tangibility, it appears in my dreams as an omnipresent, enchanted being. In truth, it is an alive and changing entity. Once covered with sizeable trees, this land was logged and plowed, but the island wants to be a forest, and when left alone, slowly returns to its past. This work endeavors to capture time’s inevitable passage alongside the unwavering spirit of place.
In addition to the traditional photographs in this series, I made lumen prints on the forest floor, which took hours to expose in the dappled woodland light, allowing weather, daylight, and plant life to shift, leaving their traces behind. By using this long, lensless process, another energy is detected, one that is slow, steady, and warm.
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