Adopted Landscapes is a series of photo-based works that depict the landscape as a departure point for conceptual and narrative compositional pieces. Disinterested in the photographic landscape as a conclusion, these works explore how to transmute the retinal experience of capturing nature, re-interpreting it so that it is connected to the human experience, inspiring us to contemplate the ever-changing ancient relationship between person and place. The works reflect on concepts of place, origin, displacement, the immigrant experience and identity.
Growing up in a coastal town in Argentina, constantly moving from house to house, memories of my childhood home are closely related to nature rather than to a particular space. It was by the ocean where I could find refuge and a true feeling of peace. After migrating to Miami, I realized that I was going back to a place with countless similarities to my childhood sanctuary: the landscape. These unique compositional works evolve from photographs of the landscape that in some ways have adopted me, back in Argentina, to images of the landscape of my current adopted city.
For this series, I intervene the images in several instances, first digitally and then manually, with colored shapes and tracing paper that is only attached to the print by using thread, as on the thread of memory. The added layers of planes and volumes resemble architectural shapes and blueprints, real and imaginary, of the multiple homes I have inhabited. Those shapes not only embrace the physicality of the landscape, but also the emotions they evoke.
This series emerged as research on the longing of home and is now expanding toward the interconnectedness between these vast places. By tracing these imaginary habitats, and re-mapping the outer-world, I aim to expand the notion of belonging and shelter, attempting to erase the concept of borders and divisions between territories, resting on the resolve that nature is, in fact, our real home.
Website
www.marinafont.com
Collaborating Artist
marina font
