RIFT / FAULT

Rift / Fault is a study of the shifting land-based tectonic edges of the North American Continental Plate in Iceland and California. Rift refers to where the North American Plate meets the Eurasian Plate, along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in Iceland.  Fault refers to the San Andreas Fault, where the North American and Pacific Plates meet.  Tectonic plates slide along the mantle of our earth, underneath our oceans, our lands, our homes.  Tectonic plate edges are geologically active – they spread, move, erupt, and tremble. Their behavior is for the most part unpredictable, and wholly uncontainable.  And while boundaries are often contested, politicized, and fought over, tectonic edges remain immune to human efforts to control.  In this series I looked for the visual traces (or not) of the tectonic plate edges upon the land, as well as the structures and uses of the built environment upon those edges. The pairing of images allows for dialogue between the wild, the geologic, and the human.  The dichotomies create a visual tension that questions the uneasy relationship between geologic force and the limits of human intervention.