Were Niagara but a cataract of sand, would you travel your thousand miles to see it?"
– Herman Melville, from Moby Dick (or, The Whale)
2013 - 2017
This series emerged during the time I was working as an information designer on a health advocacy initiative concerning waterways in Western New York and our vulnerable populations. Unconsciously (at first), I found myself lingering at sites where water has been corralled, rererouted, managed, hidden; and then alternately images where water is pooling, building, or even surging through barriers.
In part, these images reflect the illusory nature of water management and containment. These practices have certain, clear expediancy for the engineered human ecology, but water itself can only know paths, never boundaries.
We're all standing on the same floodplain, and the water is rising.