The Aesthetics of Eden

Abstract

My current research and artistic practice investigates the institutions that shape our ideas of the natural world. I am engaged in a photographic project that documents the interior office spaces of the United States federal and state park systems. Through investigating these seemingly mundane sites, I explore the relationship between idealized versions of nature –an imagined Eden– and the bureaucratic work required to produce and maintain them. The US federal and state park systems continually strive to return to an idealized state of nature while simultaneously navigating the complex and often conflicting demands of environmental protections, land use priorities, public access, and a lack of funding. All of this labor to maintain and construct this idealized state of nature often takes place within the banal spaces of sparsely decorated offices. It is through my photographs that I seek to make these typically invisible spaces, visible.