What separates my skin from the sands of the beach? Where does my mind float to if not into the sky?

Stages of Compromise is an ongoing lens-based project that juxtaposes the erosive tendencies of our environment and our bodies. Initializing terms “Erosion” and “Climate Change” as a point of entry, I use photography, filmmaking and mixed media to adhere parallels between ourselves and our environment – can we, as humans, actualize the trajectory of the land, sea, and sky if we see ourselves, our bodies, our behaviors, amongst the elements that are being affected by climate change?

This project began in 2023 as a process; the images, the filming, the transfer process informed the work and how it would be talked about. I found imbuing my images onto wood allowed me to be carried by the moment of inspiration, the beautifully chaotic flow, but with this my endurance wavered and my work suffered. What I did not know is that this fatigue pointed towards a deeper problem. Diagnosed with Stage iv cancer propelled me to look at my life and my body as a mass of molecules and particles that move and engage in this environment: they change, they multiply, they divide, they redistribute, they repeat. Mass cannot be created nor destroyed much like the process of erosion…much like the destructive redistribution of elements from climate change.

Greatly inspired by sculpture and land artists (Ana Mendieta, Andy Goldsworthy) along with formal black and white photographers (Aaron Siskind, Barabara Crane), as well as the film “Pas de Deux” by Norman McLaren, this project culminates and breathes into many mediums with the lens always being the foundation. I work from a conviction that the human structures that shape our routines and daily lives are rooted in our environment. My work is interested in teasing out, investigating, and revealing these structures and how they influence and interfere with each other. Stages of Compromise aims to present ideas that incite exchanges about our individual and collective rhythms, repetitions, memories and spatial understandings. If we can see and feel ourselves in the world around us then maybe we can find a way to collectively coalesce.

Stages of Compromise (2023 - ongoing)