COSMOS

I remember whispering to my Mother, “What is God?” and her answering, “A mysterious force in the universe.” I also remember visiting the cemetery at night, enthralled by the darkness of an unlit country road. What occurred there in that void of light, that vast darkness of night, was the understanding that I’m in a body—which is on a planet—that is spinning through space. 

Cosmos, is an examination of experiences involving things not proven by science such as: ghost encounters, clairvoyance and telepathy. It's written that only 4% of the universe is known and we normally use just 10% of our brains. Science admits there is much more going on, but the fallibility of human perception makes research difficult. The human mind is prone to distort reality—even hallucinate emotional realities...and this is a common human practice.

When I’m working I'm led to these questions:

How does humanity discover or accept new things it has no frame of reference for, no language for?

How do we explore unknown, unseen realms when we have such strong imprints of the physical world (of visible matter) embedded in our minds?

How do we prepare our mind to perceive new, unfamiliar possibilities without categorizing what we see and feel into what’s already known and accepted?

Can we hold this new, unfamiliar information long enough for it to be processed and understood, without being distracted?

How do we surpass our beliefs about what's real and what's fantasy—to be in a position to experience the unseen, not usually perceived parts of ourselves and our universe (the two possibly one and the same)?

Do we need to develop a new metric for truth—a new, non-hierarchical relationship to everything, especially the spiritual (non-physical), while continuing to value the sacredness of living beings (all forms) on Earth?

How do we create new systems if we are not willing to observe the unseen universe and develop our senses beyond the common five?

In my body of work, Cosmos, I can hold space for exploring these questions and ideas.

The mini-series called aether (within the Cosmos project) is comprised of "tree planet" images. Visually, it's in conversation with my Empty The Cache series from 2013, where I explore perceptual shifts that can take place in a void of light, the presence of black space—nothingness.

Here the black space surrounds celestial bodies made from photographing circular cross sections of fallen trees. These surreal images set the stage for future photographic conversations in my work about: perceptions of time, space and matter—in relation to communication.