The movement of material to and from Rabbit Island is not solely driven by boats or wind, the wings of birds, or even the powerful action of waves on Lake Superior. On a different, much longer time-scale the island has been visited by a host of geologic migrants. Its shores are littered with black-ish rocks set amongst the native red-pink sandstone, carried there by ice, and gesturing toward a landscape in motion, rather than one fixed beneath the arrival and egress of travelers. The adjacent Keweenaw Peninsula was made famous by its own drifting mineralogy. Massive pieces of "float copper" were lifted, carried, and deposited by glaciers, mined and traded by the Ojibwe peoples, and later used to attract industry and capital to the region. This activity first made the Keweenaw prosperous, and has since left it in an extended period of self-reflection.
There is no simple answer to the question of what moves between Rabbit Island and its wider surroundings. Immaterial ideas are transmitted through cellular signals and solid stones have been carried there on massive sheets of ice. Cumulatively these objects tell a story of the island's profound and undeniable connectedness to the history, culture, biology, and geology, which surrounds and defines it, rather than testifying to its relative isolation. These photographs are meditations on different aspects of that interconnectedness.
My photographic practice centers around questioning human and natural boundaries. Cites for this inquiry are agricultural lands and domesticated animals, spaces (errantly) considered wilderness or wastelands, and the inherently fraught nature of human attempts at conservation. My photographs investigate two of the characteristic tensions of Western civilization: the search for roots (a stable sense of history, place identity, and an associated stewardship ethic) with routes (migratory patterns, the quest for capital, and the itchy feet of would be travelers). I attempt to put these terms in dialogue in a 21st century context, acknowledging the realities of an increasingly globally connected and locally aware population.
Rabbit Island is a unique cite for documenting what the early stages of human inhabitation can bring to a largely unspoiled and culturally unencumbered environment. This second point is significant insofar as cultural histories –the stories we tell about a place – have great bearing on how those spaces will be revered, abused, or maintained by successive generations in the exigencies (social, cultural, economic, or environmental) of their time. While Rabbit Island is a model case of responsible development, land stewardship and progressive thinking, it is also emblematic of the highly networked, globally aware and resource dependent realities of the twenty-first century. It is simultaneously a finite 91-acre island in Lake Superior and the convergence zone for countless modes of commute and communication, whether physical or digital, affective or literal.
Using a 6x7 cm field camera and a 4x5 inch view camera I would like to document how Rabbit Island balances these two aspects of its identity. What does a migratory population bring to a small and isolated ecosystem? How does the culture of temporary inhabitation brush against deep ecological commitments? To investigate these questions I hope to document the comings and goings of the island, in their human, material, and biotic guises. What weather systems, candy bar wrappers, aquatic grasses, cans of diesel fuel, pelagic birds, bed-bugs and people speaking southern accents arrive and depart? Does being in motion (the tracing of routes) necessarily conflict with being at rest (the establishment of roots)?
This inquiry will necessarily focus on the periphery of the island, but I hope to look at how the heart of the island is also a cite of transit and exchange.
