Installation view from the 2021 MFA Thesis Exhibition at Mills College Art Museum in Oakland, California
In collaboration with the sun, I make cyanotypes of the chimneys that remain standing after the wildfire devastation in my community. The cyanotypes are made by coating a light sensitive iron solution on watercolor paper and allowing it to dry. I print a digital negative of the chimney on transparency film and expose it on the coated paper to UV light. The print is fixed by washing the exposed paper in water. The image of the chimney slowly emerges with the color blue. I perform this process as a reflection upon the poetics of the sun as the source of fire and water as the remedy. The resulting images are a meditation upon loss and our collective grief, offering a space for healing and renewal.