Density and Distance
Density and Distance
2016-2017
This work is an investigation into the near and the far, exploring scales of time, mass and matter via the photographic image. Specifically, this project fulfills a certain kind of visual expectation, and then defies it. In so doing, the eroding notion of the photograph as an empirical document is thrown further into question.
In the fall of 2015 I began harvesting Nicotiana seeds from my garden, carefully clipping the dried seedpods and emptying them into a large stainless steel bowl. They were tiny, even smaller than the poppy seeds used in baking. I then hand-sifted the seeds on museum board to create cosmological analogies: black holes, nebulae, latent energy, encoded life, infinite births awaiting — starstuff (to borrow from Carl Sagan) as seedstuff.
Looking up at the night sky, it is easy to become lost amidst the spangle of endless stars, ungrounded and even, for a time, overwhelmed. In making visual analogies on a scale more easily comprehensible, my hope is that these images might help to reframe our understanding of time and place and materiality, opening a little window into a very big universe.