Katherine Wilkie
The Anthropocene is a term for our current epoch in which human activity directly impacts climate. It implicates us all in the loss of species, degradation of land and the broader climate catastrophe. Anti-Anthropocene is an installation-based work that aims to deconstruct common perspectives of nature that are prevalent in the Anthropocene and to comment on the current state of our environmental crisis.
I have created visual responses to the unique ecologies that surround us and have been affected by climate change. I’ve used non-conventional photographic methods to document the land in ways that aim to elicit a more connected and holistic response to the environment than current conventional practices of landscape photography. The work is a series of videos comprising a combination of aerial images archived from NASA, recordings I made using Google Earth and scans of physical items. The locations depicted in the work are sites of climatic trauma, such as the 2019-2020 summer bushfires and the extreme, decade-long droughts along the Murray Darling Basin. I am interested in using alternative photographic processes to dismantle Anthropocentric views of the land and to promote an equilibrium between nature and humanity. These videos are accompanied by soundscapes of the Australian landscape. This gallery based, immersive installation has been adapted to be experienced on the web..
Anti-Anthropocene, 2020
Video
16 minutes
