The alarming decrease of insect, bird and small animal populations are an omen that the fabric of ecosystem is unraveling and motivated me to create Environmental Memento Mori. Inspired by Victorian photos of a deceased family member in their finest clothes and surrounded by their favorite objects, I too pose my subjects in an imagined environment. With each photo, I explore the juxtaposition between permanence and impermanence and the precarious state of our world to honor and memorialize my subjects whose troubling decline makes their recognition important and poignant.
Carefully placed botanical materials, poured colored dyes and the subjects are placed on multiple sheets of glass then stacked to form a tower. The glass layers in the stack are separated by blocks from the game Jenga and can reach a risky height. The finished assemblage is photographed resulting in an illusion; a fantasy environment that once captured is dismantled and washed away. As in the game of Jenga, it’s not hard to imagine our world crashing down as the supports necessary to sustain our environment are being removed one by one.
