Social Impact Through Collaboration
Collection 1
Last summer I found myself atop a glacier in Svalbard, in the Norwegian archipelago, hoping it wouldn’t calve beneath my feet.
What I discovered was so much more. Svalbard wasn’t at all what I thought it would be. Not only had the ravages of climate change left a distinct mark on the topography, but the landscape told a visual story of secondhand political leverage, physical change, and the exponential ramifications of unconscientious choices.
I physically experienced what we as consumers can both create and destroy, fighting climate change or causing it. The “ghosts” of our decisions travel to and reside in places like Svalbard, altering the landscape, damaging the terrain, restoring or preserving what’s left, even if we never physically go there. We become unintentional intruders, ghosts that inhabit the uninhabitable in strange and fascinating ways.
My collection is not a political argument, though it may occasionally pretend to be. Instead, I chose to explore the dialogue between two distinct, simultaneous realities—the reality of us here in New York and the reality of our presence in Svalbard. Apparently you can be in two places at once.