Karst

Through silver gelatin prints and altered ephemera, Karst considers the idea of a katabasis, a mythic descent into the subterranean underworld, as an allegory for exploration into memory.

Karst considers the idea of a katabasis, a mythic descent into the subterranean underworld, as an allegory for exploration into the subconscious. This project documents cave systems in the Appalachian Mountains in Southwestern Virginia, USA that my late father and I explored as a child. In 2024, twenty years after his death, I descended back into these caves and had some sort of blurry altercation with his shade. Karst follows a loose narrative of this katabasis into the subterranean world, and consequently into memory. The resulting photographs act as evidence of mythic, poetic, and subconscious spaces that explore the visual reconstructions we create while trying to understand how time and depth work in tandem.

Working in the darkroom is an emulation of being inside of a cave: it’s dark, wet, erupting with sensation, and produces some kind of holy imagery. Much of this work is produced by printing on expired silver gelatin paper, scarred by light over the course of its lifetime, allowing the imagery that etches into it reflect the dim conditions of the underworld. This project also features altered ephemera as well as photographs both of my father and taken by my father underground that have been re-printed in silver. The relation between his images and mine feels like a handshake that stretches backward across 30 years. Karst highlights the thin connective tissue that divides this world from the supernatural world, and examines the obsessive urge to go underground in order to confront grief, desire, and divinity.