Maps, Memory, and Video

As my work evolves, I find myself thinking about motivations and influences. This has led me to a new medium.

I have created a video montage of advertisements, gas station maps that morph into future landscapes, and 8mm films from my own family. I use these images to draw parallels between personal and collective nostalgia.

The family films portray a superficially innocent time–before abandonment, mental illness, violence, and death. The gas station maps and advertisements also show a superficially innocent time–but mask the colonialism, betrayal, violence, and death. Each of these work in parallel, with the sea level rise on the maps showing both a literal and metaphorical impending disaster.

This is a video triptych, The right panel showing an endless loop of old 8mm vacation movies, the left panel showing a loop of old gasoline station ads, and the middle panel showing the Petrofuture maps as a series of before & after animations–old gas station maps with 66m sea level rise slowly appearing on each map.