Artist Statement

I came upon this scene while walking through the brush outside Loreto. A crumpled cloth lay against the ground, pale and softened by weather, resting beside a fallen branch stripped of its bark. Stones, dry twigs, and tangled scrub surrounded the fabric, which held a shape that suggested it had once wrapped something, or someone. The image stopped me before I fully understood why.

In black and white, the cloth becomes the brightest element in a field of grey and shadow. It draws the eye the way absence draws attention. Something was here. Something is gone. What remains is the residue of presence, a trace that refuses to narrate its own story. The branch beside it lies heavy and still, its limbs reaching in multiple directions like a body at rest. The ground holds both objects without distinction, accepting what has been left as simply what is.

I am drawn to scenes of aftermath. Places where human activity has intersected with land and then withdrawn, leaving behind evidence that resists interpretation. This cloth could be many things. Discarded laundry. A forgotten picnic remnant. A makeshift shelter, now abandoned. The image does not answer. It only presents what the land has received and begun to reclaim.

In my scholarly and personal life, I have often encountered what is left behind. The residue of contracts that ended without ceremony. The traces of labour that institutions absorbed without acknowledgement. The quiet accumulation of effort that remains visible only to those who know where to look. This photograph speaks to that experience without insisting on equivalence. The cloth is not a metaphor. It is simply what I found, held by the ground, witnessed by my camera, and offered here without resolution.

The land does not judge what is left upon it. It does not distinguish between what was discarded and what was lost. It simply holds, and in holding, it teaches me something about what it means to witness without demanding explanation. The cloth will fade. The branch will soften and return to soil. What persists is the practice of noticing, of pausing long enough to honour what remains even when its story is incomplete. Photo Credit: Amy Tucker, 2026