I Was Here

Against the solid, stable forms of physical landscapes around us—horizon lines of mountains, hills and plains, seascapes and coastlines—the millennia of life and centuries of human activity blow by like a long succession of clouds. And even the geology of the world doesn’t hold still, though its constant change is at yawning scales of time and magnitude that are hard to fathom.

How, I wondered, could I conceptually model the ephemeral nature of existence and at the same time recognize, even commemorate, the bit part that any life plays in the passage of time? My answer led to I Was Here.

In this project (to date undertaken over three different time periods in three countries), I create a large gauzy, hand-stitched “timepiece,” literally marking the weeks or months I spend in a set geographical location. I then take that piece—the stand-in for my own presence—out to the local surroundings. There I photograph it interacting with all the markers of times and human history, recent and long past.

Out in the world, each thin, floaty, barely-there timepiece engages with the moment, the space and, I like to think, all the absent presences occupying the particular location. Sometimes it’s wild and energetically alive. Other times it simply relaxes into the moment, holding its place on the stage.