WOUNDED GROUND - I

Digital c-prints, sizes variable, 2014 - continuous

Wounded Ground is a visual research project that collates collages of images taken from space of the earth. The collages are made up of space photographs of open pit mines, that create "conflict" worldwide. In other words, these are the sites that harm people - be it environmentally, socially, or physically. Wounded ground is a project that looks at the anthropocene and aims to visually document and aestheticize the anthropocene. The anthropocene marks the epoch that begins with human activities that impacted the Earth's geology and ecosystems. In other words, the anthropocene is the time we are living in now, going back to the beginnings of industrialization in a modern sense.

The final work in the form of digital collages make abstract and beautify the environmental disaster of mining - the intoxi- cation of fertile land, offering the viewers the opportunity to re-negotiate their relationship to these common practices, this humancreated disaster. The digital intervention, the collage process produce images that are indexical in their content - as they are real images of these sites taken from space - and yet feel surreal in their visuality and aesthetics. The prob- lematic of beautifying disaster is a controversial method in evoking emotional and intellectual responses from the viewers. This act of making seductive what is irreparable is similar to musicians playing on a sinking ship.