Atlas of Air, 2020-ongoing

 

Atlas of Air is an ongoing practice I started as a means of record-keeping during the pandemic. The series involves meticulously cutting and collecting "blank" spaces — the areas of a photo picturing air — within front-page photographs of The New York Times. These fragments are mostly nondescript background skies in visually charged photographs depicting drought, fire, war, or the effects of the pandemic.

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The air around us and between us and above our heads is often not noticed and so it becomes a kind of "blank," a "terra incognita" — unless actual clouds appear or a particularly blue sky or beautiful sunset is present. The air itself is so ubiquitous and so overlooked.

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But what is there to see in these cut up newspaper fragments exactly? Are they photographic indexes of "something" or "nothing"? Each fragment is printed on rice paper from digital editions of the Times, then collaged into new arrangements. The work treats these overlooked spaces as material evidence of the atmosphere we move through while history unfolds around us.

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See also: Selena Kimball, "Atlas of Air" in Post Pandemic Imaginaries, eds. Les Robert and Alyssa Grossman, Bloomsbury, in press.