Undertow: 2021 - present

Some photographic raw materials, 2021

Undertow (2021–present)

Undertow is a lens-based series that investigates an ecotone—a transition area where the land meets the sea - and foreshadows its demise. I, too, am an ecotone and question the role that my history plays in the coastal spaces I call home. My camera and manipulated photographic prints are tools for excavating a haunting past when I dwelled on the eroding edge of the Atlantic coast. In search of more fortified shores on the Pacific, I discover that this sand too is slowly yielding to the rising water.

I created dark images with spotlighted, submerged or washed-up seaweed and other debris to emulate crime scene photographs. I project an ominous future as the landscape has succumbed to seascape. In this imagined future, photographs of these coastal scenes, as we know them now, are visible in crystal clear water at the bottom of the ocean, and seem to float back to the surface when remembered. In a later tidal shift, when the oceans dry up, salted prints embedded in the muddy or dry sand will signal to the scavenger that these items depict a place someone once held dear. I am intrigued by the battle between these two geographies and the role of photography in identifying them, factual and fictitious, and run towards the fear of inevitable loss.