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Cryptomeria Regeneration

Cryptomeria Regeneration, Photography
Cryptomeria Regeneration
Cryptomeria japonica is a conifer native to Japan that has been afforested across Japan in plantations after the nation was severely deforested during the Korean War. Cryptomeria is simultaneously a national symbol of the country, called sugi and planted as a specimen behind individual shrines and growing spontaneously in mixed conifer-deciduous, and a grave threat to Japan's biodiversity and soil stability, with thousands of monocultural plantations across the country abandoned and at risk of landslide. This photogrammetry image is a composite image of 84 views of a regenerating Cryptomeria seedling emerging from the stump of an old-growth tree. This 3-dimensional composite image is then further distorted into a series of points with an assigned color value and exported as a 2-dimensional rendering. The resulting image compresses the ancient stump and emerging seedling that would be invisible to the viewer in the forest, but is drawn to the forefront through the act of recording, processing and measuring.
  Kira Clingen
Photography    8 x 10 x 0.05    $100.00   
Artist Statement:
My work explores the active expression of memory through ongoing processes of maintenance and care in the landscape. For the past five years, I have explored the neologism solastalgia, meaning an emotional distress caused by environmental change. Growing up on the coast, I identify my sense of solastalgia with coastal climate change - storm surges, sea level rise and increasing temperatures. In my work, I posit that solastalgia can be challenged through repetitive acts of care, or maintenance tasks in landscapes, from the scale of a single brick to a forest. In my work, what's next is not a reinvention or tabula rasa, it is a willingness to grapple and work with the present condition through acts of care and detailed study.