SILENT WITNESSES

During a prolific period between the early summer of 2017 and autumn of 2020, I generated hundreds of large-format film photographs of land affected by wildfire, on the unceded territories of the Syilx, Secwépemc, Ktunaxa, Sinixt, Nlaka'pamux, Káínai, Siksiká and Stoney-Nakoda, Blackfoot Confederacy and Tsuut'ina among other nations. Following this output, I continued to exhibit work in group contexts, and to research and write about wildfire as a topic, however, I made very few new images. My optimism had waned, and I felt disingenuous towards those experiencing trauma following the 2021 White Rock Lake fire or the fire in Lytton during the record-breaking heat dome. I was unable to move forward and create images that avoided my past successes, or propose new trajectories. Simultaneously, I was absorbing work by a multitude of visual artists, poets, writers and illustrators working with the theme of wildfire who were coming to the foreground.

In December 2022, I headed out into the forest of Myra-Bellevue Park, which had burned so thoroughly shortly after its inauguration in 2002, and I began making portraits of individual trees under cover of darkness. Whereas my past photographs spoke to a collective forest, I was now able to highlight the individual through the use of artificial lighting. My initial excursions had a hallucinatory tone to them, as I navigated a familiar landscape through unfamiliar conditions. Attempting to maintain a sense of optimism, yet leaning into darker photographic images, now both literally and symbolically, I embarked on a month-long residency in the Similkameen Valley in May 2023. I continued to utilize artificial lighting and embraced a deeper sense of despair for the landscapes that I depicted, but soon I began attempting to capture a similar set of emotions in pictures made in daylight, or through a mixture of ambient and artificial lighting. Silent Witnesses premiered at the Musée Régional de Rimouski in a solo exhibition that runs until February 4, 2024.