LONGING
‘what you fear is what you seek…’
Throughout literature we encounter the archetype of The Wanderer, who roams both the real world and his own psychological landscape, driven by a longing for something she can’t quite define. I deeply relate to this character; I am familiar with that small disquiet that haunts the very back of the mind; the longing for some intangible thing that in turns paralyzes me and then pulls me forward. Somewhere in these quiet shadowy halls lies both our deepest fears and our deepest intuition. And both often lie beyond the reassuring reach of language to define them.
I shot this series some years ago as a collaboration with an artist friend on the grounds of Fort MacArthur, a former WW1/WW2 military base that is perched along the coastline south of L.A. The network of abandoned batteries, bunkers and housing rows were surreal and unsettling and they captured my imagination.
I have recently revisited the series as it takes on new meaning in our current times. As the physical world around each of us has literally narrowed during lockdown, we've been forced to face our inner world in a way that is challenging many of us deeply. Yet we are also beginning to see the evidence that this uncomfortable slog through our restlessness and anxiety can serve as a wellspring of creativity and change, both in our personal lives and in our collective world. As we ride the razor’s edge of fear and intuition, of waiting and urgency, the veil between our psyches and the physical world seems thinner than ever.
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