DESERT TREASURE

​Desert Treasures is a pinhole series made in the deserts of Nevada, USA. Yellow rabbitbrush is a plant growing in abandoned silver mining sites. It was hand-mixed into photo-chemistry to make these photographs. 

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The series considers the extraction of photographic silver and its connections with colonialism and changing ecologies. It thinks about the displacement of people and plant matter that make space for photographic industries and colonial ideas of progress.​

 

Pinyon forests were denuded to fuel silver mining towns in 1870s Nevada. Pinyon jays relied on the forests for shelter and sustenance. These birds are seed-storing species that can bury millions of Pinyon seeds each year.  The jays would store their seeds and occasionally forget them, inadvertently planting the next generation of pines. This series photographs the Pinyon trees that exist today.

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Desert Treasures considers the legacy of silver extraction as an active, violating force that continues to affect future worlds and lives. Accompanying each photograph are soundscapes of the desert that surround the Pinyon pines.

 

This audio-visual work considers what photography looks and sounds like when experienced from the ground.