My thesis project, A Garden of One’s Own, is a series of eight 11” by 14” unique photographic collages. By adding layers of imagery then subtracting them by scraping into the emulsion, rubbing away the paper, tearing, cutting, or the use of digital tools, mimics the thought process and the deterioration of memories. Like memory, certain things come to the foreground, clear and recognizable and some details are forced to the background, blurry and covered up by something else. Repetition in making or using the same bits of images over and over bring forth the idea of trying to remember something I am forgetting or will eventually forget. I have created an invented space that mimics the landscape as familiar yet different by constructing a visual reinterpretation of the natural world, turning it into something unnatural by manipulation. This project was initially inspired by Michel Foucault’s concept of heterotopia. Rather than a utopia, which does not exist, a heterotopia is an other place, a place that can be found in real life. They are places that mirror but distort reality, one example Foucault gives is a garden. Garden’s are stuck between wilderness and artifice. I see my thesis work relating to the idea of garden by the way I have modified and manicured landscape imagery to my taste and visual preference. I have enforced order and pattern, constantly adjusting and adding to the pieces, similar to how one would garden. By using uniform 11” by 14” sized pieces my goal was to allow the viewer to come closer and intimately investigate the work. Up close the viewer will notice the layered recognizable details in each piece, and the further away one gets the more the imagery morphs into something else, details fade away leaving only the light and dark aspects of composition to stand out. Similar to the way one would think back on a past memory, where tiny details can can disappear and you are only left with the bigger picture. This work as a whole is a metaphor for feeling like I am currently residing in an in between space, I am morphing and shifting much like how the garden and nature in general is constantly going through cycles. There is an uncertainty about my future, and it’s scary and exciting at the same time. In this work I wanted to reflect on my feelings of the unknown, and mediate through the act of physically making.