Rib Statement
In 2017 I saw the first whale on the beach; a crashed airplane. The Blue Whale, largest animal on earth, stranded on land. People were photographing it, being photographed with it, and traveling far to see it. Mandatory necropsy determined cause of death a ship strike. Most of the whale’s bones were broken and the marine biologist who oversaw the necropsy later told me this was the most damaged whale she had ever examined. The enormous body was left to decompose on the beach. It couldn’t be buried or dragged out to sea. People of the village smelled its reeking decay; stared as the carcass liquified over several months. Parts of the whale disappeared to return with the tide. It was in constant movement and transformation. People talked openly about death in ways they may not have about a human. The whale was a disruption, a connection, and an assault to the senses.
That summer I photographed the whale daily. Each day it was different, progressing towards complete disintegration. I had never photographed a subject in one setting so intensely. I knew I was looking for something, an explanation as to how we had gotten to where we are today. When I looked at the whale on the beach I saw our culture of violence, historical impact, climate collapse, as well as the remains of an intangible being that in my eyes was otherworldly and challenged my perception of the physical world. Over time the ‘whale’ became multiple whales and then a container to investigate and connect using photography.
Since then, I have sought out whale mortalities on both coasts of the United States, Baja, and the Arctic. In the United States I observed the exponential rate of whale deaths due to ship strikes, industry, and pollution. I went north and spent two summers in an Inuvialuit community in the Canadian Arctic where subsistence hunting and harvesting of whales sustains the community and their traditional culture. The sight of a family processing a whale in contrast to a team of scientists performing a necropsy presents striking similarities but differing objectives and uses of the whale. I was struck again with the depth of meaning and significance the whale held. I have specifically photographed human interactions in the aftermath of whale deaths and have collaborated with scientists, researchers, community members at whale stranding sites, and subsistence hunters.
Whale remains and their uses are symbolic: a collision of values and a contradiction of shared reality. The moment of death is intangible. I see it but can’t see it. To face the unknown, I am forced to see and feel differently. And for a time, I do, because the constructs around me are challenged and I’m shocked into a different space that defies natural order.
It is my intent to show contrasting worlds, approaches in processing, and conflicting points of view to reveal the elusive moments that come when we’re forced to look.
Santos Statement
A Blue Whale crashes onto an elite beach. Its carcass a downed-jet avatar. Marine biologists take samples, remove its eye, carve a cavity. The Blue Whale’s scale, shredding and terrestrial position, challenge understanding, drawing onlookers, dislocated in space and time.
I loop North America, capturing human interactions with whale remains searching for a still point in cavities, necro-transformations, and patterns which defy our narratives with nature. Instinct leads me to Baja's volcanic landscape. There, a crash-test L1011 basks beside the Mexicali highway. Air Whale. On a remote ridge, whale skeletons assembled by a long dead fisherman, appear ready for flight, taxiing overland. Las Islas Encantadas breach and dive. A Dead Man, The Saint, and the Little Orphan Boy appear to zoom larger the longer the distance. These islands are the whales’ landscape. Their images shift positions on the sea, conflicting with physical logic.
In Santos, the photographs form a web of interconnected moments. On a remote Baja beach, coyotes alert the lens to a stranded Beaked Whale. A trawler levitates into the night sky, denying the constraints of time. Stars streak the sea, evoking an immersed net. In displaced images, the eye confronts a paradoxical landscape: movement in stillness.