The works included in the exhibition are made from the artists’ image archive of fire and water-based tragedies, built from online news stories of current events over the past few years. The images were first classified together by subject matter, then arranged, collaged, and desaturated, so that which is still visible from each event is recontextualized into vivid, beautiful, and heartbreaking patterns. The five composite images included in the exhibition are sourced from collections of burning police cars, oil rig fires, melting icebergs, homes in floods, and red tide coupled with toxic green algae.
Fire and water mark the end of things, destruction, and demise, but throughout history fire and water can also signify rejuvenation and growth. This cycle of death and rebirth of nature and culture has repeated on this planet since the beginning of time, yet, with the inevitable repeat of this cycle upon us, it’s evident that things are different this time around: the planet is in trouble.
Ghost of a Dream asks, What do we do…how shall we react, when the biggest crisis facing humankind is being ignored? We need to rectify our systems of power, both literally and politically. The ghostly images are aligned, and visible layers of repeated tragedy remind us of the realization that we may have already surpassed the tipping point and still there are no answers. No one is coming to save us, and the time to act is now.
