Former Grand Canyon Artist in Residence Reflects on Public Lands

I am a collaborative image-maker working primarily in photography and I served as a member of a pair of Artists in Residence for Grand Canyon Conservancy in the summer of 2023. When considering the landscape that we would be responding to, we had several things in mind. First, and maybe surprisingly, we were reticent to photograph the canyon. Grand Canyon is steeped in thousands of years of representation and billions of photographs on the more recent end of that deep history of fascination. We felt a kind of communion with the makers of those images, and felt honored to be amongst them, but also felt sure that our efforts would pale against the canyon’s splendor itself irrespective of whatever skill and luck we could muster.

We wanted to approach the canyon obliquely with the reverence that the subject demanded. We thought about how the canyon’s image is already impressed within our minds before we arrive, and yet still we come, in droves, from all corners of the world to reckon with its power in person. We deeply wondered about that difference—the distance between representation and experience—and how our projects might explore that question. 

In our resulting Canyon Translations project, we focus on individuals present at the canyon’s edge while the canyon remains in soft focus in the background. Many speak of a profound sense of humility before the canyon. Most find words and pictures both utterly inadequate. Through this gesture of portraiture, we hope to throw some shafts of light on the canyon, each perspective contributing to a cumulative, incomplete, and human picture of the ineffable landscape.

Just as I am reticent to represent the canyon directly, I feel quite challenged to interpret its meaning. But I would argue that there are few circumstances as persuasive as this public land’s majesty to situate a human heart within a proper sense of our home planet’s scale, in time and in space. The canyon mediates us back. We feel as small as stars within a galaxy and yet at the same time enlarged as a human beings.

About the Grand Canyon Conservancy Residency Program

Grand Canyon Conservancy’s residency program supports Grand Canyon National Park’s priorities of dark sky preservation and inclusive storytelling by welcoming artists, scholars, and scientists from throughout the world to explore and contribute to Grand Canyon’s historic and cultural legacy. Our artists and astronomers engage the public in meaningful ways, adding to the collective scholarship on the region, and celebrating the rich environmental, spiritual, and cultural impact Grand Canyon has on the world. Learn about upcoming Artists and Astronomers in Residence and more about the program.