Human. Nature

A profound state of existential awareness. Every so often, life throws us a curve-ball, an event that leads us to question everything we thought we knew. Early in 2016 I had such an experience. I became all too aware of the fleeting nature of our existence. It is human nature to fear the loss of our individual identity. From pharaohs determined to travel to the afterlife with all that they possessed, to leaving a legacy through one’s children, people continue to look for ways to burn the memory of themselves into this world. For me, it would be through my art. I felt, then, an urgency to create; to confront the idea of self. To this end, I decided to further my artistic studies around creation, evolution, consciousness and the transmigration of the soul. Where did we come from? At which point in our evolution did we become conscious? Where does consciousness reside? And can it exist without the body? Off course, I am not the first to ponder upon such things. Myths, legends and religious texts offer varying visions of creation and the afterlife. For centuries, philosophers have contemplated the origin and meaning of life. Originally studied as metaphysics by ancient Greeks such as Aristotle and Plato, contemporary scientists are now breaking new ground on the subject in the fields of Astro- and Quantum physics. However, it is not for me to conclude these studies, but rather to share my thoughts and findings with you through surrealist imagery inspired by folklore, philosophy and science alike. To create this new body of work, I spent the month of October 2016 wandering the forests of Finland, rediscovering what it means to be human. Human.Nature considers humanity and our relationship with nature, both the external environment as well as our inner biology. It is a return to nature. The city-dweller reconnecting with the earth. Soft moss under bare feet. Cold air against warm body. The body that will eventually return to the soil to give life anew. As mentioned, this series is very personal to me. It is my reaction to the fear of dying; my search for solace. As such, I thought it pertinent to act as the protagonist in my own tale. Going solo on my excursions into the forest allowed me to fully experience both nature and photography, uninterrupted, in a way that I have never done before. It allowed me to truly be in the moment. It soon came to light that it was also an opportunity to add a new skill to my repertoire: Performance Art. This required of me to develop a new process. Once I established the scene for an image, I would set the camera up on a tripod and then use the intervalometer to automatically capture images at pre-defined intervals. During these exposures, I would tap into my subconscious to interpret the moment through movement and dance. Fellow artist Kathy Moss, calls this the “reverie state”. I believe it to a be a form of Automatism. A narrative acted out in front of the camera without truly knowing what is being captured in the frames. Working in a foreign environment, I felt that it was important to draw inspiration from both the landscape and culture. Several of the images from Human.Nature are imbued with narratives from Finnish mythologies surrounding concepts of the soul and the transmigration thereof. For this I drew inspiration from two texts. The first is a volume entitled Mythologies of All Races: Finno-Ugric, Siberia”by Uno Holmsberg, which I discovered during my visit to the National Library in Helsinki. The second, the Kalevala, a 19th-century work of epic poetry compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology. This series is a portrait of my soul.