Cyanotype Interjections
This series started in 2024 as a look into surrendering to medium and materiality. I had recently moved back into my old apartment, a space that holds a lot of trauma, and a strange option presented to me which I had little to no choice but to take in light of soaring rents in Vancouver. During the move, I found a stack of coated cyanotype paper. Not wanting to waste the resource, and curious as to the potential longevity of the chemistry - I decided to make exposures with this very old paper and surrender to the results.
With these exposures, I wanted to work with my surroundings - opting to place them amongst rather than the more traditional approach of pick-and-preserve. I was more interested in seeing how the shadows would cast and be captured when the light sensitive papers were nestled amongst and interjected into their surroundings - capturing the interaction of the wind, light and flora of that specific moment. Aware of the possibility of failure in a purely photographic sense (ie. if no chemical reaction happened, and therefore there was no shift in state to capture a record of disrupted light) I decided to make quick sketches while the work was in situ - tracing the shadows of the grass, leaves, and flowers that I had interjected into with colouring pencils which had been left behind to me. A shifting of the context of these drawing implements which had previously taken up space as a painful memory burden, into a place of new collaborator. These works capture so many shifts in state, attempts at capturing light, place, time and stardust. Representative of my ever shifting personal landscape, and how I am an interjection into this world around me.
Each cyanotype is made using either printmaking or watercolour paper, with the light sensitive emulsion painted directly onto it. The sizes of each interjection range from 3x3 inches to 8.5x11in, and they are often shown in coversation with each other to form larger modular collections of gathered time and place.
This series started in 2024 as a look into surrendering to medium and materiality. I had recently moved back into my old apartment, a space that holds a lot of trauma, and a strange option presented to me which I had little to no choice but to take in light of soaring rents in Vancouver. During the move, I found a stack of coated cyanotype paper. Not wanting to waste the resource, and curious as to the potential longevity of the chemistry - I decided to make exposures with this very old paper and surrender to the results.
With these exposures, I wanted to work with my surroundings - opting to place them amongst rather than the more traditional approach of pick-and-preserve. I was more interested in seeing how the shadows would cast and be captured when the light sensitive papers were nestled amongst and interjected into their surroundings - capturing the interaction of the wind, light and flora of that specific moment. Aware of the possibility of failure in a purely photographic sense (ie. if no chemical reaction happened, and therefore there was no shift in state to capture a record of disrupted light) I decided to make quick sketches while the work was in situ - tracing the shadows of the grass, leaves, and flowers that I had interjected into with colouring pencils which had been left behind to me. A shifting of the context of these drawing implements which had previously taken up space as a painful memory burden, into a place of new collaborator. These works capture so many shifts in state, attempts at capturing light, place, time and stardust. Representative of my ever shifting personal landscape, and how I am an interjection into this world around me.
Each cyanotype is made using either printmaking or watercolour paper, with the light sensitive emulsion painted directly onto it. The sizes of each interjection range from 3x3 inches to 8.5x11in, and they are often shown in coversation with each other to form larger modular collections of gathered time and place.
