Please give a brief background of yourself.
My name is Rachel and I emigrated to Vancouver, Canada from England in 2016 and became a Canadian citizen in 2022. I completed a degree in Fine Art Photography at the University of Derby in 2013, then returned to education as a mature student to study a Fish and Wildlife diploma in British Columbia in 2020. Coming from one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, I became passionate about developing knowledge on rebuilding intact ecosystems. I am now an environmental specialist who works with birds, amphibians, and mammals throughout a variety of habitats, with past projects in the Yukon and Yellowstone National Park. I bring my art practice into the field, primarily using the cyanotype printing method (the exposure of an object on light-sensitive material using sunlight) to capture natural textures and sense of place.
Please state your artist statement
I was recently diagnosed with Cholesteatoma; a rare, chronic middle ear disease that slowly erodes the tiny middle ear hearing bones. By its nature, Cholesteatoma is invasive and recurring, and can take a long time to diagnose. My hearing has been impacted permanently as it was too late to save one of the bones. The experience triggered a fascination with capturing sound into physical form and experimenting with the boundaries of the cyanotype medium. While surveying bird nests in northern British Columbia in the spring and summer of 2022, I recorded sonograms of birdsongs on my phone and transformed them into hand-made negatives, which were then used to print cyanotypes onto fabric. The act of inscribing physical fragments with the memory of songs expresses how sounds inhabit space and knit the land to the sky.
How do the experimental processes involved with creating your images add value to your work?
The spontaneous nature of experimental processes allows time and place to be a fundamental part of my work, and cyanotype’s characteristic blue and white tones align with the aesthetic of birdsong through intertwining themes of the sky and transcendence. Additionally, the accessibility and affordability of experimental processes appeal to me. I don’t work out of a studio – instead, I work after dusk or on cloudy days and use portable darkroom trays and old jugs and jars, semi-destroying my bathtub while my partner is away at work (and can’t see the mess). The reality of being an artist renting a small apartment in an expensive city means you have to be economical and simple. Cyanotypes allow you to create art using minimal materials. The limits of camera controls disappear and the creative process becomes more organic, and your tools are uncomplex and harness light in fun, imaginative ways.
What is the importance of having a physical art piece to document something inherently non-physical?
Birdsongs - fleeting as they rise and dissolve - are encapsulated into unique signatures like pages of music, and the cadences become poetic identifiable markers. The disease has encouraged me to see how sounds occupy space and connect us to our surroundings in compelling ways. Many little migratory birds are elusive and heard more often than they are seen, and I like how the sonograms became a creative way to chronicle the activity of a busy morning in the forests of northern BC. Having them printed onto easily-creased fabric with unravelling edging denotes a permanent but fragile tangibility. These physical pieces of songs reveal the birds’ presence, breath, and life.
What is special about the cyanotype process and why do you feel like the cyanotype medium helps convey your point the best?
The nature of cyanotypes has led me to experiment more. I have been printing cyanotypes for nearly two years and I still cannot predict the shade of blue or crispness of contrast when I put a piece outside to expose. The behaviour of light and humidity within a winter blue sky is different to that of warm summer rain, as is snow to raindrops and cloudy dawn to smoky dusk. The process has taught me to be patient and anticipate each piece as a surprise. In preparation for a placement studying mammal tracks in Yellowstone last November, I pre-treated squares of fabric and stored them in a black bag while travelling as I didn’t feel like explaining the properties of potassium ferricyanide to the border agent. The portability of the squares meant that I could experiment by placing them inside wolf skulls at the museum I was staying at (obtained and archived by biologists with permits) and hike with them into the park. The pre-meditating, handling, and anticipating of creating cyanotypes adds an authenticity and spontaneity to my work.
Where do you get your inspiration from?
Many artists inspire me, but three I can easily think of are: Anna Atkins, for being the first person to publish photography as art form and scientific documentation through her cyanotypes of British marine plants. Susan Derges, for her ability in capturing the silhouettes of trees and murmurs of water without a camera. I discovered her work in photography school and her nature-inspired imagery still resonates with me today, reminding me of William Faulkner’s passage describing a river in As I Lay Dying; ‘It talks up to us in a murmur become ceaseless and myriad, the yellow surface dimpled monstrously into fading swirls travelling along the surface for an instant, silent, impermanent and profoundly significant, as though just beneath the surface something huge and alive waked for a moment of lazy alertness out of and into light slumber again.’ Between Atkins, Derges and Faulkner, writing and art and feeling and scientific observation are connected. Derges’ explorations of water behaviour in the cool streams of Devon, England, are a long way away from Mississippi, but the same etiquette of water and its romance, suffocation, darkness, and tranquility applies. It makes me want to encapsulate the feeling of Earth moving and living and dying through photography.
What do you want people to learn from your artwork?
I am passionate about habitat and ecosystem conservation and I am constantly inspired by our natural spaces, so I like to think that people feel a pull to natural spaces and species diversity when they see my artwork. These cyanotypes are a love letter to the diversity of British Columbian migratory birds, and this project will continue to evolve as I document birdsongs throughout the habitats I interact with. Many bird populations in western Canada are falling because of habitat degradation and fragmentation, introduction of invasives, and depletion of food resources. Some species are in danger of being lost forever; the intersection of art and science is becoming increasingly more emotional as climate change impacts our planet. The goal of my artwork is to contribute to the ever-evolving dialogue on global warming and help bring attention to Canada’s vibrant but vulnerable wildlife. Taking action on the biodiversity crisis is partly a communications issue, so I am hopeful for art’s potential in continuing to explore and highlight environmental causes in contrast to the often-archaic exclusivity of Western scientific research.