This work in progress from my Masters is about liminal states, an inbetweenness where I believe we find ourselves intellectually and emotionally. I believe that we need to break free from hierarchical dualism, from dividing the world in two, and realise that life is more complex and its systems more entangled. These images are about relearning being in my home environment - a ski resort in Switzerland - collaborating and listening to other entities.

Gryon is a ski resort in the French-speaking Swiss Alps and has been my home for the last 15 years. During this  period, the region has seen some of the driest winters on record. The warming climate has wide implications for the local labour market who have a long history of living and working within this landscape. Tourism employs 80% of the village population but the mountain can only sustain the people with support from the federal government. Increasingly we need to listen to the mountain to find new ways of being. 

New Materialist thinking challenges the hierarchical dualism underpinning how we currently think about the world. The way we divide everything in two: mind and body, subject and object, human and thing. This thinking has allowed us to consider the nonhuman—material and natural entities—as resources for our growth and pleasure and has led to climate change. New Materialist physicist-philosopher Karen Barad suggests that we choose a perspective, and that we measure intra-actions, terming this an ‘agential cut’. This cut allows an entity agency and facilitates meaning to be created. It is through co-creation that we can dialogue with the world and that parts of the universe are able to make themselves intelligible to each other.

Using multiple methodologies and generative techniques both digital and analogue, I use photograms, plant-based developers, the internet, and cyanotypes as a plurality of thinking about the different perspectives of the issues. I seek the collaboration of things that are nonhuman: snowballs, fir trees, webcams; not hoping to be neutral but open to listening to what other things have to say.

In this project, I use the science and poetry of photography as a form to stabilise the world: choosing a perspective, measuring the intra-actions, noticing the moment of agential cut. These moments of attention and listening are rooted in care. Care reminds us of the interdependent and reciprocal nature of all relations, not separating those between the human and nonhuman. And so, I ask with Ursula Le Guin how we can relearn our being in the world to better understand climate and the impacts it has on local communities. In doing so, I am expressing my deep love and respect for the mountains where I live.