Gowanus Wild

I aim to turn concepts of nature photography on their head by finding the beautiful in what most consider to be a man-made environmental catastrophe. The Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, New York is one of the most polluted waterways in America and the neighborhood has seen continuous industrial use since the 19th century. My vision is to capture a marriage of opposites; the organic in the industrial, green within blacks and grays, stillness and peace in urban chaos. As our urban communities grapple with how to connect with the primeval in an environment that offers sterile potted plants as an outlet to nature, I see Gowanus Wild as an urban hiking manual, a continuation of generations of landscape photography, updated for our technological age. If only we adjust our perception of what is ‘nature’ and ‘wild’ around us, a fascinating wilderness can be found in the fringes of our decaying cities where nature and chaos conspire to produce a new type of wild beauty.