The Dissolving Landscape Series
The Dissolving Landscape Series
By Ella Morton
The Dissolving Landscape is a series of experimental analogue photographs that examine climate change int he landscapes of Canada and Nordic Europe. The project asks the question: what are we losing, in terms of our spiritual connection to the land, as the climate rapidly changes ?
The Dissolving Landscape project was started in 2016 during The Artic Circle residency in Svalbard, Norway. The process involved soaking large format film in acidic solutions prior to exposure in order to degrade the emulsion. The resulting images convey the tenuous state of Svalbard’s landscape due to climate change. Images continued to be worked on over three years making new versions with the Mordancage process. Mordancage is a black and white process that degrades the shadow areas of silver gelatin prints, lifting the emulsion off the paper and creating eerie veils and textures.
Ella Morton is a Canadian visual artist and filmmaker living in Toronto. Her expedition-based practice has brought her to residencies and projects across Canada, Scandinavia and Antarctica. Working primarily with lens-based media, Morton uses experimental analogue to capture the sublime and fragile qualities of remote landscapes. Reflecting on how the medium of photography is changing in the digital age, she aims to uncover how photographs can show more than a straightforward depiction of reality, and how the alchemy of analogue techniques can be reinvented in the present day to tell deeper stories within images.
This artwork is presented in collaboration with Capture Photography Festival and InTransit BC.
