Underearth

In caves, the darkroom, and the lighting studio, I investigate darkness as an active presence. "Underearth" examines our relationship with the Earth by slowing perception and recognizing sight and light as a struggle between control and submission.

A cave serves as a site of resistance. Defined by darkness, it resists our need to illuminate and make sense of it. This work highlights the struggle to comprehend the Earth, and the way that our presence and projections are intrusive, even violent, both below and across its surface.

Human influence on our environment has seeped below our awareness, and in this project, I engage with this influence through the complexities of sight and darkness. The light we bring into a cave shapes our perception, and as we illuminate the darkness, we impose our own will upon it. Our engagement with the world is always an act of negotiation, an attempt to bring order to chaos, even when the space resists it.

Through darkroom masking techniques and images taken within the cave and my studio, I uncover and re-cover a cycle of restoration and destruction, shining a spotlight on our involvement in spaces that should remain hidden. I am at the mercy of the rocks, the objects, and the shadows. Negotiating the darkness, attempting and often failing to bring order to chaos through the machinations of the camera, I challenge our hierarchy and place us below the horizon line.