In Rapture, so named for the rapture with which we hold our ancestors who came before us, explores the complexities of history and identity through large-scale styled portraits and narrative photography. Our work seeks to access the ancestral world and repair ruptures to our ancestral lines caused by the interwoven histories of colonialism and capitalism.
We examine ancestral connections to geographic sites in a world impacted by the forced and voluntary migrations that took place under colonialism. The power of the geographic site plays a key role in our images. Whether that connection is represented through an echoing of the symbolism of the landscape, such as in the case of the ocean, or through an acknowledgment of the specific histories of occupants of the land itself, we avoid using the landscape as a “stage” for portraiture. The landscape is never simply a backdrop, but something that holds deep meaning, functioning as a living, spiritual element within the work.
We are surrounded by the divine. In our work, we seek to create real spaces where people can thrive as magical, divine beings. Importantly, we use film to record these divine apparitions. With film we are left with a physical object, an imprint of light on the negative; a tangible document. Our work is an ongoing process of reconciling our ancestral history with the present moment. A process of marshaling religious imagery and images of divinity from classical painting, and the creation of a space that is s
