My photographic work often references landscape and geography while exploring ideas of memory, narrative, will and consequence. I work both factually with what I find in the landscape and through small interventions.

When I photograph, I often feel as if I am travelling to some in-between space. There I find a gap full of anomalies where certitude is outweighed by mutability and possibility. I am using traditional film stock and therefore must wait for my results. For now, I prefer to see this as a kind of alchemy. This magic making suits my project.

NAVIAGTE

2002-ongoing

Images taken from ship to shore and shore to ship form the basis of this photographic project. Navigation provides the guiding metaphor to explore ideas of experience and cognition. Photographing sites along the northeastern Canadian coast, I am exploring the mix of definitive fact and mutable process that characterize actual and imagined travel.

A number of journeys are grouped under the organizing title, "NAVIGATE." The first took place in May 2002, when I traveled up the Saint Lawrence as the guest of the captain on the freighter "Ferbec." In progress is another journey in the Canadian Arctic. The photograph Ferry documents travel in Nova Scotia.

AEROSTAT

1998-2000

Every wind has its weather. (Francis Bacon)

"Aerostat," is a portrait of air. One of the five natural elements, air is visible as wind. It is present through the movement and sounds of the known world: trees are blown, land is eroded, wind turbines turn and tumbleweed is carried

This work develops the notion that air and its wind have no independent material presence. Rather wind is marked by the consequences of its actions. Both our imaginary and physical worlds record wind's triumphs and tragedies. Yet it cannot be photographed, seen, heard or measured without the objects it acts upon. It doesn't smell or taste other than by the grace of what it carries or hosts.

Wind cannot stay still. While distanced from the senses, wind has a full range of motoric capabilities. Wind gains and loses material presence according to the weather. Even as it mutates, wind sustains itself within our imaginations. Even before the next gust comes, we imagine its presence. Of all the elements, wind parallels most closely the daily and everyday activities of our minds. To begin, sustain and then cease is a ubiquitous cycle repeated in our conversations, emotions and actions.

I became unconscious

1996

In 1893 a passenger-laden sternwheeler sunk in the Thames River in London Ontario. This holiday crash claimed the lives of 200 victims from all social strata of the community. In the days following the crash, the local newspapers were full of speculation, blames and "what ifs". Bystanders commented on the events and others noted that swimming was important skill. Suffusing all was the grief, despair and empathy of surviving family and loved ones.

One survivor talked about choosing to live as he almost drowned and then swam successfully for shore. "I became unconscious and sank beneath the surface. But touching bottom gave me fresh energy and I swam once more for shore. " These paraphrased words became the base for my photo based work, "I became unconscious."

I became unconscious is an installation work with multiple components which can be configured according to the venue. The installation is comprised of B/W photographs, sculptural components, video/audio.