December 1-4
Wissahickon Valley Park, along the creek’s edge near Kitchen’s Lane Bridge. Debris - plastic bags suspended in bank’s brush
2020
Photographic polyptych
Wissahickon Valley Park, below Forbidden Drive. Debris - a rusted charcoal grill and brick-patterned packaging
2020
Photographic polyptych
Artist Statement
Philadelphia has a troubled past and present of being a toxic environment. Over the last three decades, Philadelphia has battled water pollution due to the city’s combined sewer system. Today, our city is ranked as one of the most polluted in the country. Beyond the water, this can be felt in the air we breathe and seen on the city’s dusty, trash-strewn sidewalks. It even bleeds into our “natural spaces.”
In an attempt to freeze and acknowledge the slow violence we, humans, have inflicted and continue to inflict upon the environment, I investigate and catalogue how the anthropocentric impact of industry, through the creation of human-made materials turned debris, is felt across Philadelphia’s landscapes, focusing Wissahickon Valley Park. My hybrid practice employs the digital medium of photography as a way of seeing and bearing witness to that which we as an urban society have become blind. By aestheticizing ecological degradation as a form of slow violence, I seek to implicate the viewer as consumer and co-creator of debris, engaging each individual’s sense of moral responsibility.