MARROW

Photograms, video, installation, and hand stitched artist book printed on Washi Kozo paper.

MARROW began with collecting—tree material offered by the forest that exists within Chicago—along sidewalks, parks, backyards. This work has evolved into an attempt to hear what trees can say and share. Can their voices be translated through light poured onto photographic paper, and appear as image? With this project my aim is to recognize the invisible forces and elements of the Earth—to listen and pay attention to the more-than-human beings that entangle and connect us. It also acknowledges time scales beyond human perception that can teach us how to live in closer connection to the Earth.

In the summer of 2020, I started noticing the giant Sycamore bark pieces strewn on sidewalks while on walks with my dog, Edmund. Over three summers, I filled my garage-studio with bags and stacks of the bark. Deadfall Sycamore branches caught my attention next: carrying armloads home, the knots of the branches reminded me of bone joints. I skinned the branches, burned bark, charred knots, and smashed seed balls. All of it entered the darkroom, where I made photogram experiments in both black & white and color. I’ve also made fire videos, ash photographs, and versions of handmade books, all of which culminated in a solo show in Hudson, NY, fueling the project. 

This fall, I’ll be the teaching artist for the Museum of Contemporary Photography’s Art, Activism, Policy, Power program: widening my urban canopy research, and partnering with Openlands Chicago and art students from three high schools who will learn and make work about Chicago trees. In the darkroom, I’ve expanded beyond the Sycamore to now working with twenty of the most prominent Chicago tree species.

The invention of photograms as an early photographic technique paralleled developments in biology and modernism—disciplines that explored new visual forms and sought to understand the natural world through art and science. My photograms connect with that lineage but belong to this moment. We now know that trees communicate with each other through fungal networks, chemical signals, root systems. This knowledge reshapes how we understand the intelligence of trees, especially now, as ecosystems edge toward collapse. My photograms aim to extend that awareness—an attempt at dialog with urban trees— to feel their presence, importance, and plight—and our connectedness. In the darkroom, using flashlights, gels, and movement—jumping around in the dark—asking trees to speak or participate energetically through waves of light.

When I first brought the Sycamore bark into the darkroom, the resulting photograms evoked bones and mark-making. It felt like a language from the trees. In the color darkroom, another voice emerged—through hue, shadow, and chance. I intentionally relinquish control over variables, embracing accident and intuition. This process echoes trees’ own relationship to light: responsive, adaptive, a condition for survival.