Borrowed Landscape

Borrowed Landscape is an exploration of growth and stagnation, loss and gain, loneliness and community. I started this work as a way to survive through the turmoil of pandemic years, and as a way to feel more connected to my community and the wider world.

Borrowed Landscape is an exploration of growth and stagnation, loss and gain, loneliness and community. I started Borrowed Landscape as a way to work through the turmoil of pandemic years, and as a way to feel connected to my community and the wider world during a time of intense isolation. "Borrowed scenery" is an East-Asian gardening philosophy that uses the configuration of one's private garden to integrate background landscape scenery—the world beyond the confines of home—into the garden's design. 

In 2020 my garden became my only creative outlet, and a source of peace and strength amidst crushing uncertainty and grief. Feeling a dearth of change and growth in my own life, I focused instead on the quick lives of my plants. Growth, abundance, decline, death—caring for my plants was a way to care for myself. A desire to examine simultaneous feelings of grief and gratitude was a way back to photography. I created portraits and still lifes of the plants themselves, photographed the landscape of the yard, and experimented with making collaborative, situational portraits with my neighbors and friends who share the outdoor space. 

Some neighbors have moved away and new neighbors have moved in. The seasons change and plants die back, then re-emerge. For all the care we take, and for all the ownership we may feel over our private spaces, we are borrowing small pieces of the landscape until it is time to move on. For now, my yard—the garden—feels like an estuary: it’s where the private stream of home life meets the powerful, pulling tide of all that is out of doors.