Public Project
The Systems That Shape Us
Summary
A fine art series of images, photographed around the world from a small plane, that explore the systems that shape our modern lives, societies and economies.
As we go about our daily routines, do we consider the structures in place that put power in our electrical sockets, food in our grocery stores, plastic in our consumables, or salts in our batteries?
As a photographer & visual anthropologist, when I started flying in small planes I was struck by how tiny our all-important lives actually looked from above, when moments ago the concerns of the terrestrial life had seemed so all encompassing. Flying above my own town, I was duly shocked by how little I actually knew about the area that I had lived in for years - I drove around and explored on foot (or so I thought) - only to realize that all it took to keep something out of my field of vision & understanding was something as insignificant as a 6 foot tall fence, a gate, or even none of the above in many cases. From above, I could see massive caverns gauged into the earth by bulldozers, vast stretches of electrical lines and transformer stations, landfills sprawling across hilltops, junkyards, and industrial plants alongside water sources. None of this had I ever noticed, or given much thought to.
I became fascinated by capturing and studying images of the infrastructure around my community, and those of communities globally - visually investigating the infrastructure that we may not heed in our everyday lives, and exploring the human-made systems that define the foundations of our societies, cultures and economies. In this visual exploration, I also found a mesmerizing beauty in the patterns that emerged - in both the human-made & natural ecosystems, and my goal is to share this sense of awe and curiosity with others through this series. These photos were made in cities throughout the United States, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, & Belgium.
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