Forever Wild
Few fully understand what the Adirondack wilderness really is. It is a mystery even to those who have crossed and recrossed it by boats along its avenues, the lakes; and on foot through its vast silent recesses.
~ Verplanck Colvin, 1874
Project Statement
In the 1890’s a boundary of 6.1 million acres in northern New York was placed under constitutional protection forming the largest state park in the continental US. Since then, all public land in this place has been governmentally sanctioned as “forever wild.”
This series approaches the intricate relationship between the land and the inhabitants of the Adirondack Park in northern New York. Aesthetic choices within the series are informed by American transcendentalists, Hudson River school painters, and survey photographers who were responsible for many of the early visualizations of the park. Forever Wild reflects upon the evolution of an American landscape by conjuring pastoral ideas of man, nature, the frontier, and true wilderness in the context of modern day ideals.
