The exhibition New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape, photography-based Conceptual Art of the early 1960s and 1970s, as well as the works of Land and Environmental artists of the 1970s, have each contributed to discussions regarding how humanity interacts with the world and its impact on the landscape. By using writings and examples regarding key artists during these movements, I will explore their thinking and how their work overlaps with each other as well as my own thesis work.

For my thesis project, I have made a series of photographs that are tentatively termed experiments in the landscape. Each photograph consists of, and is made complete by, my interactions within a select place. Repurposing various materials, along with materials found (and used) in-situ, or on-site, I have made a series of images that hone in on idiosyncratic qualities within these particular landscapes. I use this strategy to further the discussion of human interaction with the total environment. Ideally, a photograph I determine to be complete neither simply records an action (a document), nor is it a recording, or representation, of a place; instead, the interaction, the exchange between myself and the place, and the photographs of them, makes and completes the image. I will explore how my series of photographs draws from these art-historical influences, and makes the interaction with the total environment manifest.