MARION BELANGER

LOST LAKE

You should lie down now and remember the forest,
for it is disappearing--
no, the truth is it is gone now
and so what details you can bring back
might have a kind of life.

- from The Forest by Susan Stewart

Lost Lake is a meditation upon fragility and beauty, discovery and disorientation.  The series originated during the pandemic when walking the forest became a refuge from the surreal quality that everyday life had assumed.  This series also reflects the influence of time spent with my young grandchild who is blind. While glimpses of light, and shades of color slip in and out of her perceptual field, it is the tactile and aural that inform and shape her understanding of the world.  Lost Lake reflects my effort to understand her experiences as she walks the forest with me, and as such I have embraced the use of the photographic glitch, abstraction, and applied color fields. The abstracted patterns are suggestive of scientific recordings (weather, earthquakes, climate records and hearts), or the textures of tree bark and other patterns of nature.  They might also mirror the movement of fingers, touching and exploring (she sees with her hands).  Lost Lake is also a lament.  The forest bears many scars of anthropogenic disruption, especially the fallen trees, so fragile and vulnerable seeming.  There is much to mourn, yet there is also so much to do in this time of precarity.  Reflecting this need for action, I have incorporated photographs of hands and earth at the moment of touch.

EVER / AFTER
Marion Belanger and Martha Willette Lewis (Collaborators)

Ever/After is a collaborative multimedia art project that consists of photographs by Marion Belanger and ink paintings and collage by Martha Willette Lewis. This visual dialogue grew from their shared state of unease and concern regarding the climate crisis. Belanger makes photographs in the field and prints them on lightweight but durable rice paper that Lewis then soaks, stains, tears and paints upon. The added stress upon the photographic image (some which have already been altered by double exposure and intentional abstraction) symbolically references the damages and disturbances such as extreme storms, forest fires and extinctions that are now so evident in daily life. Manipulated, gilded, stained and torn, the works become artifacts bearing the impact of human touch, just as the land itself does. Fragile and beautiful, Ever/After is a visual lament for the seepages, shifts, losses, extinctions, and extractions made by humankind.   

THE RED ZONE OF VESUVIUS

Ashes were already falling, hotter and thicker as the ships drew near, followed by bits of pumice and blackened stones, charred and cracked by the flames…
From the letters of Pliny the Younger on the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D.79

The Red Zone of Vesuvius continues my long-term photographic study of tectonic plate boundaries. Tectonic plates slide along the fluid mantle of our earth, underneath our oceans, our land, our homes.  Most geologic phenomenon occurs along the plate edges which shift, erupt, and tremble. Their behavior is for the most part unpredictable, and wholly uncontainable. And while boundaries upon the land are often contested, politicized, and fought over, tectonic plate boundaries remain immune to human efforts of control.

Vesuvius is part of the Campanian volcanic arc, a line of volcanoes that formed over a subduction zone created by the convergence of the African and Eurasian plates.  It sits in the crater of the ancient Somma volcano, and last erupted in 1944.  When volcanoes erupt, magma (hot liquid rock) rises up from the core of the planet and punctures the earth’s crust.  Vesuvius has a tendency towards violent eruptions, and it is the only volcano on the European mainland to have erupted within the last hundred years.  The volcano is most famous for the eruption which completely buried the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum under layers of volcanic ash and pumice A.D. 79.  Pliny the Younger, in his eyewitness account wrote: “We were terrified to see everything changed, buried deep in ashes like snowdrifts.” The terror and destruction of that event continues to fascinate and horrify to this day.

The Vesuvius Red Zone in Naples, Italy is a legal designation, formally calling upon residents to acknowledge the vulnerability of their location and to make preparations for a safe evacuation in case of an eruption.  Over 600,000 people reside within this danger zone, making it one of the most densely populated volcanic regions in the world.  It’s an uneven, jagged, difficult terrain, nonetheless, one filled with life and growth.  Farming in southern Italy is generally exceedingly difficult given poor soil conditions, yet the region around Naples is an outlier.  Rich in minerals and nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium, the soil is fertile due to the weathering of the deposits of tephra, ash, and lava from past eruptions.  Vineyards, olive groves and tomatoes abound.  The friable soil also acts as a sponge, soaking up and storing rainwater which is then slowly released during the dry summers allowing for the vines, vegetables, flowers and herbs to thrive.

The paired photographs in my series reflect upon the geological violence of the past, the vibrancy of the present, and the possibility of future volcanic catastrophe.  The Red Zone of Vesuvius documents the volcanic and the human, the fertility of the garden and the preserved fragments of an excavated past, and the power of fire to both destroy and renew.

CUL-DE-SAC

My photographic work focuses on the concept of liminal space, where land reflects the conflicting forces of transition. In my book Rift/Fault, the images portray the profound geological collisions in Iceland and California; and in Everglades, I photographed the counterpoise of human endeavors with the untamable land along the edges of the Florida Everglades.  The images here are from recent work that originates closer to home – a semi-rural area along the Connecticut shoreline.  It is informed by the modern land-use tension between development and preservation, involving areas designated as “open space” that are often used as a tradeoff for building housing communities on former farmland. The suburban Connecticut town where I live is officially designated a “rural” community although many of the historic farms that once defined the town have been sold to residential developers.  Often the new developments result in the use of Cul-de-Sacs that plunge into the designated open space. What’s left is an odd fragmentation, and a sense of isolation:  houses are sited along manicured streets that go nowhere. I live on a cul-de-sac.

The landscape has a sense of fragmentation: cows and horses, then a cul-de-sac, then an apple farm, and more cul-de-sacs.  A highway runs through the community like a main artery: to live in the suburbs one must have a car.  A variation of a dead-end street, the cul-de-sac provides a bulb at the end of the street wide enough for uninterrupted turning space for neighborhood automobiles or service vehicles - there is no incentive or reason for other traffic, unlike the city grid system of roads.

 An open space reserve is an area of protected or conserved land or water on which development is indefinitely set aside.  The equilibrium between development and land conservation is a critical and oftentimes fraught balance; many see the preservation of open space crucial to a positive quality of life, but the economics involved in maintaining open space is often fraught.  Preserved open space is traditionally not contiguous, although a movement is underway in some communities to change that. Fragmented parcels of green space alter animal and bird migration patterns and generally skews the overall ecological balance of a region.  Wild animals are trapped in the patchwork of backyards; gardens are decimated by grazing deer, and water quality is compromised by fertilizers.

 The photographs I have submitted are made close to home. I know these places, and this familiarity is a defining feature of the work.  The captured moments are gentle, and quiet.  I move slowly, looking for the light.  There are no grand gestures, only intimate glimpses.

WIRED FOREST

Wired Forest initially began as a response to the alarming disregard of climate-based science among political leaders in the United States.  I documented university and governmental research forests and lab facilities, and scanned archive images of soil and plant experiments.   I sought out research forests where where complex ecological systems are monitored, deconstructed, analyzed and systematized.  It is interesting to note that this project trajectory was radically altered because of pandemic requirements of isolating in place.  During that time I was an artist in residence at the Connecticut Agricultural Experimental Station where I was working on a permanent installation pertaining to their archives with my collaborator Martha Lewis. I began to pair my photographs of research forests with the archive documents..  The pairings mirror the strangeness of life during a pandemic, and evoke poetic narratives that go beyond any didacticism and polemics of climate change.  While scientists are able to do climate research in part by mining the specimens and records that past scientists carefully recorded, I wondered how recontextualized archive images inform and enrich contemporary photographs of our changing planet?  I am interested the interconnectedness of systems, both subjective and those that we share together.  Wired Forest is ongoing.  

RIFT / FAULT

Rift/Fault is a study of the shifting land-based tectonic edges of the North American Continental Plate in California and Iceland.  Rift refers to where the North American Plate meets the Eurasian Plate, along the Mid-Atlantic Rift in Iceland. Fault refers to the San Andreas Fault, where the North American and Pacific Plates meet. Tectonic plates slide along the mantle of our earth, underneath our oceans, our land, our homes. Tectonic plate edges are geologically active - they spread, move, erupt, and tremble. Their behavior is for the most part unpredictable, and wholly uncontainable. And while boundaries upon the land are often contested, politicized, and fought over, tectonic plate edges remain immune to any human efforts of control.  In this series I looked for the visual traces (or not) of the tectonic plate edges upon the land, as well the structures and uses of the built landscape upon those edges. The pairing of images allows for a dialogue between the wild and the contained, the fertile and the barren, the geologic and the human.  These dichotomies create a visual tension that questions the uneasy relationship between geologic force, and the limits of human intervention.

SURROUNDED EVERYWHERE BY THE SEA

Liminal landscapes – earthquake fault lines, volcanos, tectonic plate edges, the harborages of profound change - have long been the subject of my photographic work. I photograph transitional spaces that linger between nonuse and purpose, both in the natural landscape, and in the constructed and built structures that define our civic spaces.  Surrounded Everywhere by the Sea includes monotone portraits of Cuban farmers who organically work the soil; landscapes of crumbling structures and seemingly abandoned public spaces; unmarked graves (Castro proclaimed that “Whoever attempts to conquer Cuba, will gather the dust of her blood-soaked soil, if he does not perish in fight!).  I made these photographs during the brief period where sanctions had been relaxed between the US and Cuba.  President Obama visited - the first sitting president to do so in almost 90 years. Hotels were being constructed at a mad pace, and every room was occupied.  Direct flights from New York were plentiful.  The Rolling Stones gave a free concert in Havana at the Ciudad Deportiva the same week that Obama visited.  Optimism and hope, and analogies to Woodstock (albeit a clean and sober one), were inescapable.

Now the US Embassy is essentially empty, and travel restrictions have dampened hopes for future engagements.  A mysterious illness sickened the embassy staff – a fact that flirts with cold war intrigue, or science fiction sabotage.   While the spirt of Cuba is strong and resilient, the trace of history resonates with transformative upheaval and revolutions, the trauma of blood-stained soil, and an almost constant struggle for survival.  Evidence of hardship is everywhere.  Aging brutalist architecture from the Soviet era crumbles in neglect, and once beautiful parks sit overgrown and decrepit.  Boats lay forgotten and land-bound due to government prohibitions (wet foot dry foot), and vestiges of heroism and beauty are seen in the many monuments, stadiums, and athletic tributes. I prefer the precarious tipping point of bright light represented in high-end shades of grey.  I wanted the harsh tropical light to be represented with a delicacy that is tenuous in nature, almost brittle. The color concert photographs are deliberately incongruent.  The flash of hope was real, but brief.   

Surrounded Everywhere by the Sea focuses on this unique point in time through several distinct, interrelated frameworks titled, Farmers, Parks, Cemetery, and March 25, 2016.

FIELD AND LABORATORY STUDIES OF SOIL

Friability of soil refers to its crumbly texture, which is somewhere between sand and clay.  It is not so fine and grainy like sand, or so thick and mushy like clay. A handful of friable soil when pressed hard, should form a lump, but the lump can be easily disintegrated.  Friable soil has a plentitude of micro-organisms which maintains a crumbly, fertile soil. It holds many times its weight in water, like a sponge, and allows for root spread.  Plants grown in friable soil will be healthier, will have lush foliage, strong root systems and be resistant to diseases and pests.

TENUOUS LANDSCAPES: PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE FLORIDA EVERGLADES

“They are mystical and strange, having a peculiar enveloping atmosphere of timelessness that is most poignantly felt when one transverses the dark maze in a boat.  Under such conditions there is a feeling of vague uneasiness, even of slight depression, a sense that this will always be a wilderness capable of overwhelming the puny efforts of mankind by the sheer exuberance of its own life.  Upon emerging from the confines of the Everglades there is a sense of escape, one breathes easier and once again can kid himself into thinking that he amounts to something.  Later, in going back over the experiences the visitor will wish to return, the sense of bafflement will have been overshadowed by curiosity to see more of this strange tropical jungle. Hence the Everglades are not inspiring, they have about them a certain quality of making as deep an impression on human sensibilities as do the grand and awful silhouettes of the Rockies.”

Clifford, C. Presnall, Assistant Chief of the Wildlife Division, Department of the Interior
July 12, 1938

I read the Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean and then the Watson Trilogy by Peter Matthiessen.  One book led to another, and I began to imagine the visceral feel of the place, the humid touch of the air, the oppressive heat. I had seen the Everglades from the plane – a dark nothingness at night, and by day a flat, often wet, expanse of swampland, punctuated by agricultural fields and housing developments.  I was curious to experience the natural landscape, of course, but I was even more interested in the determined efforts of engineers, over many years, to eliminate the swamp – to drain it for sugarcane fields and development profit.  To me it was the dark heart of the state.   

RIVER

“Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you.”
Wendell Berry

The Naugatuck River is 40 miles long, and carries the distinction of being the only river to begin and end within the state of Connecticut.  It essentially parallels Route 8 for the duration of its length.  The source is just north of Torrington, and it flows south, into the Housatonic River in Derby.  During the 19th and 20th centuries the Naugatuck River Valley was highly regarded as a manufacturing center.  I grew up in the town of Naugatuck, home to the United States Rubber Company, later renamed Uniroyal.  The town is probably best known as being the birthplace of Naugahyde, but it is also where the Mounds bar was made, at Peter Paul.  The Naugatuck Chemical Company, (later Uniroyal Chemical), also made it’s home along the River in Naugatuck.  The company would discard noxious, neon-colored chemicals into the air and river.  The water was lifeless, and the air, sharp and polluted.  The town was scrappy and dirty, as were the other mill towns along the river. The River was so toxic and dirty; that the thought of it being anything more than a dumping ground for waste was unthinkable.  Yet today, the mill and factory buildings sit fallow and decayed.  The water in the River is clear, if not altogether clean, and fish have returned.  Stretches of green adorn the River where industrial activity once rendered the waterfront a monotone dirty grey.  Still, much of the land cannot easily be reused because it is haunted by contamination and pollution. The unkempt in-between spaces of the post-industrial Naugatuck Valley, the River, and Route 8 are the focus of this new body of work.

REAL ESTATE

In Real Estate, I investigate the in-between status of uninhabited interiors.  Some spaces reveal hints that reference past occupancy and use.  A flooded hospital wall holds a painting, suspended in time; a podium sits in an abandoned courtroom; a paper American flag still hangs in the emptied newsroom; floors still reveal evidence of use, whether by footsteps embedded in the carpet or through scars made by past activity.  Newer construction, defined by blank walls, suggest narratives as yet undefined.  The photographs portray the inevitable transformations that define cultural spaces.  They picture impermanence.