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#Paddington — 2023 · Black-and-white film slides, slide projector · Above: projected on screen · Below: 69 slides
The photographic series Scenery of Human Traces captures the red rust on a Victorian-era steel bridge, a relic of the First Industrial Revolution, creating a scenery woven from mankind, nature and time in monochrome. Situated in the heart of London, this Victorian bridge stands as a reminder of the British Empire’s golden age. At the same time, the photograph reflects the gradual decay of the iron on the bridge. What else could this image suggest? Perhaps it addresses the roots of drastic issues we are facing today, such as climate change and the destruction of nature. Personally, it also evokes the idea of the “Grand Cycle” of Earth, where cyanobacteria and human activity are intertwined as part of the same process. As the wind and rain slowly erode these industrial relics, the environmental consequences of the Industrial Revolution have become more evident worldwide. This scene suggests that the impact of human activity far outlives the lifespan of the structures we create, reflecting on how our actions will leave their traces on the future of the planet, even long after we cease to exist.
#Paddington, #Camden — Printed 2024, shot 2023 · 35mm black-and-white film, full sheet, archival pigment print
#Umi — Shot 2023, printed 2024 · Black-and-white film, archival pigment print · Natural History Museum collection, London
These photographs show a fossil of an ancient sea on display at the Natural History Museum in London, taken on black-and-white film. The museum label reads: “More than 3 billion years ago, bacteria living in Earth’s young oceans began to produce oxygen through photosynthesis. This oxygen combined with iron dissolved in the sea to form insoluble iron oxide, which separated from the water and sank to the seabed. As it settled, layers of red and grey iron oxide formed between layers of silica-rich sediment. The intricate, dramatic layers seen in this rock mark a turning point in Earth’s history, the Great Oxygenation Event, which increased the diversity of life and gave rise to a new mineral, iron ore.” I saw this new mineral as a fossil of an ancient sea, and photographed it as a seascape.