The Future is Broken

The Future is Broken addresses my anxiety for the future of our planet. Seeking to create a dialog with the viewer about the true status of our beloved lands, I overlay climate science data onto landscapes of personal significance. Turning to laser etching, CNC milling, and LED light mapping processes allows me to visualize what is often hidden from plain sight and creates a conversation about what is personally at stake for us in the age of the Anthropocene. Sometimes beautiful and other times already disfigured, the spaces in the photographs are infused with personal connections which ground the often alarming and abstract nature of global climate change statistics. By activating spaces with light during long exposures I leave traces of myself in the frame, referencing my own connection and concern for these landscapes. Alternatively using a laser engraver to sear into photographs with heat, I erode away their surfaces, symbolizing an environment’s fragility. Taken together, these processes serve to collapse the often invisible realities of climate change onto the landscapes we revere, reflecting a deeper truth that the camera alone isn’t capable of capturing.