This project aims to build a visual archive of minerals, fossils, and artifacts, which all fall under the rules and responsibilities of Utah public land status. In basaltic boulders carried from glacial flows, rock art recordings by ancestral peoples, and scattered refuse left behind by uranium miners of the early 1900s, time and space is book-ended during the Human Era, or Holocene Epoch.
Following Alaska and Nevada, Utah has the most publicly owned land in the United States, and has nine designated international dark sky parks, more than any other state, province, or region in the world. Such designations have provided us with a very well preserved antechamber of the present era.
Using a consistent film format, lens, and camera body, the field of the visible will remain intimate throughout the body of work. The constructed typologies will create an impression of control, of order, a precursor to humanity's eagerness. Utah land status is visualized in each photograph, highlighted by the scenic, historic, and ecologically important artifacts that have been under government protection for 100+ years. These photographs have twin points of departure: humankind’s relationship with the earth during the Holocene, and the continuing crisis of protecting public lands.
