Described in her book Braiding Sweetgrass, Potawatomi scientist Robin Wall Kimmerer surveys 200 ecology students on their understanding of the interactions between humans and the environment. Nearly every one of them states that humans and nature “are a bad mix.” Trying to contextualize the responses, Kimmerer says that “perhaps the negative examples they see every day – brownfields, factory farms, suburban sprawl – truncated their ability to see some good between humans and the earth. As the land becomes impoverished, so too does the scope of their vision.” She continues to pose the question, “how can we begin to move toward ecological and cultural sustainability if we cannot even imagine what the path feels like?”
The question of how humans fit into nature – how we can coexist with the natural world – is one that I believe forms the basis of modern day environmental exploitation. The western belief that humans are the most intelligent and important species on the planet and that we are separate from our natural surroundings allows for us to justify our exploitation of it.
It’s important to understand that the world around us is alive and sentient. It’s full of different organisms - microscopic and large - that fulfill critical roles within broader ecosystems therefore allowing for humans to live on this planet. All these parts of our living world have their own unique methods of communication oftentimes lying outside of human understanding - such as how trees are able to communicate with each other using mycelium from fungus, or how anemones, when under threat, secrete chemicals to warn their neighbors of danger. If we can understand that our lives are intrinsically linked to these aspects of our living planet, we can better appreciate and treat our planet.
Within this collection of photographs, I hoped to capture ideas stemming from these thoughts.
I first wanted to capture images of the details in the world around me - different smaller aspects of nature that can oftentimes be overlooked if you don’t slow down and take the time to absorb and be present with your surroundings. I hoped to capture the uniqueness of different environments, and help to demonstrate the importance of appreciating the world around you.
I also hoped to use some of the images to compare aspects of our natural environments with human constructed environments to demonstrate how human creations are intrinsically connected to other aspects of nature.
As a student who has specialized in science for the past five years, I think that science is an amazing way to understand the world around us, but I also believe there is so much that science cannot explain. I lastly hoped to try to capture the essence of these thoughts as well.
