Ghost Forest
In the fall of 2020, huge wildfires raged on the west coast of the U.S., our sky turned yellow-gray from smoke, it rained ash across the whole country and left us gasping for breath. I mourned the loss of forest lands now blackened with carbon. My desire to create something out of the ruins led me to collect black coals from the fires. Carbon so black, the fundamental building block of life and the remains of a fire. I realized I could create carbon prints, transforming the charred wood into recorded images of the forests themselves. After extensive research and experimentation, I am now making prints from the ash of many wildfires with visits to more fire sites in my plans. Invented in 1855, the carbon print is considered the most archival of all photographic printing processes with an estimated life of 10,000 years. Carbon does not fade. Instead, in my hands, the burned remains of the trees become photographs, in hopeful anticipation of the natural regeneration after fire. My process and its resulting prints, with their frilled edges and torn emulsion echo the way natural fire cycles can surmount devastation to provide nutrients to the soil, force a pinecone to disperse its seeds, or shape the landscape, in contrast to the extreme intensity and size of the fires that are now common. The photographs show us the beauty being lost to human negligence and the climate crisis.
Printed as lantern slides, the forest memory is held captive on sheets of glass accentuating both the fragility of life and our precarious position. The images shift depending on whether you see them from the shiny side or the emulsion side of the glass. Sometimes, the photograph is only partially captured, like an unfurled piece of ash floating up from the fire. This is the Ghost Forest. When installed, the Ghost Forest moves photography off the wall and into the middle of the room. The photographs on glass hang from the ceiling on pairs of cables that suggest the outline of trees. Hung at various heights the viewer is invited to move through my forest, witnessing a range of natural elements; small understory flowers, waterfalls, dappled light in the trees, a burned branch that has travelled down river to the ocean, as well as the aftereffects of fire.
My intention is to transform the devastation from the sick panic of needing to evacuate to one of beauty with awareness. In the U.S., there have been an average of 70,000 wildfires each year for the last 10 years, 90% of them caused by humans. While this shocking number is actually lower than it was in prior decades, the number of acres burned is going up and now averages 7 million acres a year. Upon completion the Ghost Forest will have 70 trees to commemorate the fires and 70 trees for the 7 million acres burned.
For More Information:
NPR radio on KLCC, Viz City, Worth the Trip: Sarah Grew at Lane CC
One Twelve Publishing, Poignant Portfolios #43
Lens Culture Critic’s Choice Award 2022