Groundlessness
This project was my initial reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic - written and created in March and April of 2020.
The photographic works below are self portraits during a time of quarantine. The scenes are installments created in a concrete tool shed - having physically extracted nature (grass sod, plants, rocks, bark) from its environment and assembling them elsewhere, using wood pallets and wire.
Sirens rang out in the wind.
A reckoning echoed softly
over the hillside.
Then,
the earth stood still,
as this tiny world
toppled upside down.
But the sirens sang ever clearer.
Do you hear it now?
Now that the world isn’t spinning,
buzzing in your mind?
You must see. You must feel it.
Listen for the whisper in the night.
Has it given you a fright?
Listen.
But don’t yet put up a fight.
For the fault is deeper than first sight.
Our palms are being nailed tight.
Dig into the earth,
feel the vibration in your bones.
Watch as the ground shudders,
the grass shivering in the smoke filled breeze.
The fire is raging,
but the embers light up the shadows all around. These unintended secrets, shining unbearably bright in the darkest of nights.
It seems to me this world has been twisted for quite some time,
that the mute sky has finally gone and left us behind.
To walk amongst our own shadows
and grasp these scars we leave behind.
I could tell you to roll back over,
when you reclaim both your eyes.
That the seasons to come will not suffer,
but that would be a lie.
