They said, “It’s just L.A.” But I saw a world ending.
The Spirit of Los Angeles
iPhone photography, digital collage, direct to media print on dibond
34.5×39.5” and (2) 34.5×34.5″ · 2020/2022
On September 6, 2020, I was enjoying the view of the San Gabriel Mountains from a lookout on Mulholland Drive. We were still in the depths of lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and this outdoor space was a refuge.
Looking out across the human sprawl coating the valley, I focused on the mountains and their foothills. I searched for the places I had explored as a child. I thought of the more-than-human neighbors that had once been my companions—creatures who also called these mountains home. As I watched, a wisp of smoke appeared, spiraling upward.
The fire spread quickly, becoming one of the largest on record in Los Angeles County. It burned 115,796 acres and pushed several rare and endangered species closer to extinction, including the Santa Ana sucker fish and the Southern California mountain yellow-legged frog.
I photographed the fire as it raged, flames pouring down the mountains like lava. I texted local friends with words of sorrow. Their replies stunned me:
“We always have fires…”
“It’s just Los Angeles.”
“They won’t let it reach the houses.”
“Good thing it’s Covid and we’re already wearing masks.”
That casual detachment—the normalization of destruction, the anthropocentric ease—landed like a blow. This wasn’t just another fire. It was a mass extinction unfolding in real time.
In response, I digitally collaged supermodels in designer pandemic-wear over images of the fire. Masked icons of beauty. Spectral avatars. Are they goddesses rising from the flames, enraged by human audacity? Or are they asking: What have we done?
This work is a grief ritual and a media critique. It mourns the Earth and exposes the cultural machinery that numbs us to planetary collapse. It asks what happens when the only stories we’re given are consumer stories—stories designed to sell us satisfaction, even as the world burns.
In alignment with the Post Carbon Institute’s Resilience course, this series questions the core myth of the consumer economy.
Can the tools that turned people into consumers be used to turn consumers back into people—people capable of deep relationship with the Earth community, human and more-than-human alike?
Advertising and marketing once shifted global consciousness. Can they do it again?
We are out of time. The most recent IPCC report issued a Code Red for Humanity. This is the sixth mass extinction. We are living it. We have crossed the event horizon.
We may not be able to undo what we have done. But we can choose how we go. We can exit as loving, compassionate beings—awake to the beauty we once belonged to.
Making requiems with places experiencing extinction brings me closer to the beings I love. Engaging, connecting, listening, remembering—that is what I love doing.
It fuels the palpable invisibility of my soul.
Solo Exhibition
The Long Gallery
The Spirit of Los Angeles
7-11 March 2022
Opening Event: Tuesday March 8th 4-6pm
The Long Gallery is located adjacent to the Hatton Gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K. See Hatton Gallery website for directions.
