Photography courtesy of Mitch Maher
Planetary Projections / Gardens of Acceleration
2019
A projection created for the exhibition Digital Nature at the LA Arboretum, curated by Shirley Watts. Shown simultaneously with my solo exhibition Found Among the Leaves; a Bibliophytology in the Arboretum Library.
"Botanical gardens bring plants from all over the world into one garden, the planet in microcosm. The Los Angeles Arboretum and Botanical Garden has been a part of this global exchange since 1947 to the present, a historical period sometimes called “the Great Acceleration” because of the intensification of human impacts on the planet through transportation, landscape transformation, and energy extraction. “Planetary Projections / Gardens of Acceleration” draws from both original and archival footage to visually explore these dynamics as they manifest in Southern Californian as well as the grounds of the Arboretum itself. Invasive ants, freeway traffic, wild fires, and introduced species emerge and transmute as projection mappings of the Earth flicker in and out -- as shapings of the planet and projections of own desires upon it. The is a both a garden Arboretum and node in a network of accelerating environmental change."