NAOMI WHITE
visual artist

KEYSTONE GALLERY PRESENTS

LANDSCAPES OF ILLUSIONS AND POSSIBILITIES:
MAPS, MATERIALS AND THE LENS

Participating Artists: Alicia Piller | Beth Davila Waldman | Naomi White

Landscapes of Illusions and Possibilities is a response to this tumultuous moment in time through a photographic lens. Themes of empowerment, intersectional abolitionist feminism, hope and healing run through these works. Notions of navigation, mapping, border crossing, fluidity and flux occur, with the conceit that everything changes. Transformation is how we survive.

Thinking through and with historical theories on landscape and power, including Octavia Butler’s Parable series, the work contends with the importance and inevitability of change. Tearing into photographs holds open places in the land for stolen, lost, misremembered stories, and stories that are yet to be written. Transformation is required for survival. Transformation is the key to transcending our current situation, from climate change to genocide. According to WJT Mitchell, the landscape is not just something to be looked at but a process, like art, activated by choices and labor. Disrupting old surveyor photographs of the West as symbols for past and current oppressive systems of settler colonialism, we encounter hope and resiliency.

Thirty million years ago, early humans evolved the ability to see color, initially distinguishing only between red and green to identify edible berries and food. Over time, as our vision adapted and expanded to detect a wider spectrum of colors, we developed the ability to perceive all colors effortlessly. Similarly, our capacity to envision worlds beyond corporate greed and human suffering is evolving. Just as our perception of color has grown more refined, we can also hone our ability to imagine and work towards a more just and equitable future taking shape.

Photographs from this exhibition are by my former student, NYFA MFA Alumni, Pamela Garcia @pamelagarciaphotoevents