Kintsutures

It is evident that our natural environment is suffering: climate change, deforestation, coastal erosion… The list is long and alarming.

This series is a metaphor for repairing our damaged environment. The title, Kintsuture, is an amalgam of two different approaches to regeneration. The first is a reference to medical suturing – the sowing together of torn apart bodies in order to heal wounds. There are many instances where we see wrecked landscapes, gaping holes in the earth’s surface that demand our attention and care. In the b/w photos that I use, I look for ruptures in the landscape, for example, cracked rock surfaces, burnt tree bark, or signs of industrial incursions such as quarries. I then sow along the lines marked out by the fissures, or sow together disparate pieces of landscape.

Kintsuture also refers to the Japanese technique of Kintsugi, which is the tradition of repairing broken porcelain with gold glue. The damaged object is thus repaired and also transformed into something more beautiful. The cracks in the porcelain delineated by the gold, accentuate both the destruction and the mending of the object and its regeneration into something else. This idea of repairing with a precious element is reflected in the gold thread which weaves a unifying web over the surface of the photos.

Through this process, the photo itself is transformed – it becomes a work on paper, more than just the initial image. It requires a different way of reading the photo - the photo is no longer an image through which we enter, like a window. Instead, the embroidery draws attention to the surface, transforming the photo into an object with a tactile presence. Each work is the result of a manual creative process which adds layers of meaning to the original image.