Rift / Fault, 2006-2012

Extent:

1.0 Linear Foot (1 box)

Physical description:

All prints are signed by the photographer and measure 16 1/2 x 13 inches, with images measuring 13 1/2 x 10 3/4 inches. The photographs in this series were printed in 2019 on an Epson 3880 with archival Epson pigment inks on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Pearl paper.

Scope and content:

These 48 images were taken between 2006 and 2012 in dramatic geological zones in California and Iceland, and, as in Belanger's previous project on the Everglades, she focuses attention on the dual relationship of landscapes and their impact on humans, and humans and their impact on the environment.

From the artist's statement: "Rift/Fault is a study of the shifting land-based tectonic edges of the North American Continental Plate in California and Iceland. Rift refers to where the North American Plate meets the Eurasian Plate, along the Mid-Atlantic Rift 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 land, 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 upon the land are often contested, politicized, and fought over, tectonic plate edges remain immune to any human efforts of control. I photographed the visual traces (or not) of the tectonic plate edges upon the land, as well the structures and uses of the built landscape upon those edges, allowing for dialogue between the wild and the contained, the fertile and the barren, the geologic and the human. These dichotomies create a visual tension that questions the uneasy relationship between geologic force, and the limits of human intervention."

The full artist's statement is available in the portfolio box.

Titles and dates are transcribed as they appear on the print versos.

Physical facet:

48 color inkjet prints

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