Thinking About Photography

© Donna Bassin, all rights reserved

Environmental Melancholia: Precarious Places

Environmental Melancholia explores the nuanced interplay of injury, damage, loss, grief, resilience, and repair rooted in personal and collective experiences. This series confronts the urgent complexities of the climate crisis and its profound effects on our environment, physical survival, and psychological well-being. As a clinical psychologist specializing in traumatic loss, I have blended my insights from mental health with my passion for visual storytelling, creating 45 photo-based landscapes that reflect the deep losses we are experiencing in terms of land, flora, and fauna as we witness contemporary ecological challenges and the vulnerability of our planet. My work is deeply personal and rooted in my grief as I observe this environmental decline. I aim to create aesthetic experiences that engage and provoke thought; I invite viewers to face their existential fears, encouraging collective connection and reflection instead of denial or paralysis.

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Visually, I draw inspiration from the captivating landscapes of 19th-century American painters of the Hudson River School, such as Thomas Cole and Frederick Edwin Church. Their vision of a fictive, unspoiled wilderness that melds reality and imagination often relies on composite scenes from various views and inspires my reinterpretations. While they celebrated the beauty of nature as an early call for environmental preservation amid the unchecked industrial age of Manifest Destiny, their work also reflects the shadow of history, erasing Indigenous peoples and the exploitation of their land.

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Similarly, at first glance, many of my landscapes seem idyllic and recognizable; however, a closer look disrupts this façade, challenging assumptions about an unchanging natural world and our expectation that nature will persist unchanged. Each piece reshapes traditional topographies, prompting questions about the changes happening in our current landscapes. To create my imagined landscapes, I layer two photographs – one printed on Moab Entrada Rag Natural and the other on Moab Moenkopi Unryu, sourcing each from my archives of distinct geographic locations to form a single, unified landscape. Each landscape features GPS coordinates from the original locations, intentionally omitting human-defined borders and nations’ names. I juxtapose visions: one depicting desolation – deforested mountains, melting glaciers, or parched coasts, with another that is vital, reflecting the beauty of what has been lost or what could be reclaimed through collective action. Through digital editing, I harmonize the two layers, aligning color, scale, or composition – a mountain’s curves connect to a river’s path – initiating a dialogue between hope and despair, healing and loss. I attach these layers using archival photo corners, Japanese washi tape, or embroidery thread, adding a tactile dimension to the work.

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In some works, the photo corners evoke nostalgia, hinting at a future where remnants of our natural world exist only as distant memories, reminiscent of postcards in a scrapbook of a vanishing past: a sentimental archiving of loss. In others, I grapple with the swift disappearance of our resources; fertile landscapes and wildlife are extracted from one photograph and transferred to another of a diminished, injured environment, tenuously held together with tape or stitching to embody a reparative process of healing and restoration.

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As an artist, I wrestle with the implications of categorizing my work as political. While I aim to address pressing issues, such labeling might constrain my work to a singular narrative and overlook its emotional, aesthetic, and conceptual layers. The complexity of social and environmental challenges often defies simplistic categorization, and I hope my series serves as a medium for nuanced exploration rather than a prescriptive call to action. I understand that political labels can alienate specific audiences, limiting the reach and resonance of my art. As I navigate these tensions, I remain committed to creating art that invites reflection and dialogue, transcending the binary definitions of art and politics.