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ULTIMA

Ultima (thule): the farthest point; the limit of any journey. the highest degree attainable.

My artwork is deeply rooted in environmentalism, showing my concern for thefuture by depicting the ways in which mankind’s creations have an impact on the planet.Primarily it is about the modern conflict between the manmade world and the naturalworld, and between contemporary and indigenous cultures. I portray this as an epicstruggle and in my work these forces clash in theatrical, post-apocalyptic battlegrounds.This body of work envisions a hypothetical future called Ultima, exploring the idea thatthe world as we know it might not last forever, and creates a setting for what couldpossibly come next.

Conceptually, I am fascinated by the idea of nature reclaiming the Earth throughthe biological forces of deep time. My main inspiration for this direction came fromseeing the incredible jungle-covered ruins of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Beingsurrounded by these ancient structures of a lost kingdom that have been completelyreclaimed by the natural environment was a very powerful experience. After researchingliterature such as The World Without Us by Alan Weisman and Collapse by JaredDiamond, I grew specifically interested in what our own cities might look like after beingabandoned for thousands of years. Through my images I was inspired to create strikingjuxtapositions between the ruins of modern civilization and a futuristic ecological utopia.The narrative progression of the work shows a rediscovery of these remnants belongingto the conceivably forgotten past.

The title Ultima is defined as “the highest degree attainable” or “the farthestpoint; the limit of any journey”, and was used to refer to places that were, “beyond theborders of the known world” (1). Each of the three series is distinct in showing differentregions of this unknown landscape, but in the end they all come together with eachstoryline revealing its deeper layers. The first part is about discovery, finding thesestrange relics of modern civilization and seeing them through new eyes. The second partis about interpretation, mythologizing the old world, and creating sacred places toperform spiritual rituals. Finally, the third part is about adaptation, learning how toinhabit this unfamiliar environment, and to build upon it anew.

With this work I was greatly influenced by stories about undiscovered tribes andvanished cultures like the ‘Anasazi’, which is a Navajo word for their unknownpredecessors meaning ‘the Ancient Ones’. The Pueblo people discovered the ruins ofthese ancient cities, building on them and making them their own, and created an entiremythology about their ancestors. In Book of the Hopi by Frank Waters, tribal eldersreveal cultural myths about these cycles of world creation, destruction, and reemergence

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through successive epochs. I was inspired by their continuous “spiritual migrations to theends of the earth and back” (2) showing that every ending can also be a new beginning.

There are many historical examples of cultures reaching their peak, overusingtheir natural resources, collapsing and leaving behind mysterious ruins such as the Mayantemples of Central America and Easter Island’s stone statues. I wanted to take thisconcept and visualize it in a contemporary sense because we are facing many of the sameproblems as these ancient civilizations, but on a much larger scale. This body of workexamines modern humanity’s role during our time on this planet and questions the legacythat we will be handing down to the next generations. Humans now have theunprecedented potential to affect the Earth to a global degree, and my images depict anextreme example of what we might be capable. With this project, my main goal is toshow a glimpse into this hypothetical world and give viewers a space in which tocontemplate the future of our planet.

1. "ultima thule." Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 08 Feb. 2015.

2. Waters, Frank Book of the Hopi: The First Revelation of the Hopi’s Historical and Religious Worldview of LifeNew York, Penguin Books: 1963

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REFERENCE

Weisman, Alan The World Without UsNew York, St. Martin’s Press: 2007

Diamond, Jared Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or SucceedNew York, Penguin Books: 2005

McKibben, Bill The End of NatureNew York, Random House, 1989

McKibben, Bill Eaarth: Making Like on a Tough New PlanetNew York, St. Martin’s Press: 2010

Kolbert, Elizabeth Field Notes From a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate ChangeNew York, Bloomsbury: 2006

Kolbert, Elizabeth The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural HistoryNew York, Picador, 2014

Smith, Lawrence C. The World in 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization’s Northern FutureNew York, Plume: 2011

Nield, Ted Supercontinent: Ten Billion Years in the Life of Our PlanetCambridge, Harvard University Press: 2007

Ward, Peter D. The Flooded Earth: Our Future in a World Without Ice CapsNew York, Perseus Books Group: 2010

Lovelock, James The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final WarningNew York, Perseus Books Group: 2009

Thacker, Eugene In the Dust of this PlanetWinchester, Zero Books: 2010

Waters, Frank Book of the HopiNew York, Penguin Books: 1963

Castaneda, Carlos The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of KnowledgeOakland, University of California Press: 1968

Harner, Michael The Way of the ShamanNew York, Harper Collins: 1980

Reel, Monte The Last of the TribeNew York, Scribner: 2010