Scales of Exposure

Natasha Peterson, an Australian photographer living locally, and Michael Vine, a Cambridge anthropology Phd candidate, teamed up to explore the Salton Sea as an exemplar of man's relationship with the environment. Natasha shot many images at different scales - both aerial photographs of the sea's environs and macro images of found objects obtained on foray's into the communities surrounding the sea through an electron microscope. The result was a provocative installation titled Scales of Exposure that paired Natasha's photos with Michael's writing. 

 

The images are wonderfully abstract - one of the aerials resembling a late Turner painting hung upside down while one of the macro images appeared to contain a flying buddha in the layers of some discarded glass. Michael's writing set the context which was broken into five essays: Frontier, Exposure, Haunting, Desire, and Decay. 












The opening reception was very well attended and lively discussion was had. Michael gave a talk challenging our notions of revering protected nature (aka National Parks) while trashing everything else outside the boundaries. He also pointed to man's place in the bigger picture of Nature and the Salton Sea as a wonderful example of man's place in nature rather than effect on Nature.










Thank you to Natasha and Michael for the great work and fro bringing it for a few weeks to the studio at BoxoHOUSE.