Lindsey Butler BFA General Fine Arts Thesis Fall 2015
Through the focus on a singular landscape, Burnt Bridge Creek Trail, in Vancouver, Washington, I have been able to explore in my thesis work this landscape through the lens of the Anthropocene. In considering the definition of natural in the current geological age, an age dominated by humans, I personally have dissected and deconstructed many of the interactions that humankind has with nature. This act of deconstructing humankind’s interaction with nature is a part of my daily life; I feel as though I notice everything from a tree getting cut down, to where a person’s sneeze lands in the dirt around them. The question of how natural is to be defined in this era has been a focal point for much of my work, and my thesis work addresses my initial searching for the difference between the natural and the not natural. I have decided on and settling for a space in between, a space where I simply deconstruct the interactions rather than prescribe a label, natural or not natural.