Artist Statement
This series of murmuration collages represents coming together in peace, unity, and collective action during these uncertain times. As part of an artist collaboration with Guns to Gardens Denver, I created images of unwanted guns surrendered by myself and the community using the cyanotype and lumen photographic processes. These are processes that utilize only light, water, and alchemy, much like the garden. The actual guns were cut up and forged into live-giving garden tools, and the photographic images of the unwanted guns were cut up into birds by me and local students to form these murmurations. I hope that this work will be healing and uplifting for the community as we come together in harmony with each other and the planet, instead of tragedy.
With images of gun violence so ubiquitous and even celebrated in American culture, I wanted to create an alternative. As the gun images are cut and collaged, destruction becomes creation. The project also becomes a metaphor for transforming the fast and slow violence to the environment and communities, since they are inseparable. The current degradation and damage being done to air, water, and soil quality have a drastic impact on surrounding communities and all species.
References to violence are also common in our society’s language and shared in the language we use for photography: to load, aim, and shoot (reference to Susan Sontag). The cyanotype and lumen photographic processes transcend this language by using only light, water, and alchemy.
To overcome the collective violence being done to people and the Earth, only unified, global collaboration can create change. By making these images, it becomes a meditative way for me to imagine a better world.
For all the womxn who have been murdered or assaulted and not made the news, I remember you today. For all who have been hurt by those in positions of power either in their own home or elsewhere, for those long since forgotten due to your skin color, gender, sexual orientation, or class. Too many to list. This project is dedicated to you.