What I Saw in the Water

Seth Adam Cook

Degree: MFA

Area: Photography

Thesis Statement

What I Saw in the Water reflects the environmental destruction of the Gulf Coast by examining the consequences of human-made interference. The practice of environmental control originated to manipulate nature for humanity's benefit. On the Gulf Coast, manipulating nature takes the form of off-shore oil drilling, fracking, and pipeline transports. Despite disasters such as the BP oil spill, these practices continue today, further leading to the erasure of the southern coastal region - its ecosystem and communities. By giving voice to landscapes ruptured by human-made control, this series reveals the fluidity of ecological forces, thereby destabilizing the illusion of controlling nature.

Physical manipulation becomes the practice used for this body of work to manifest. Each photograph is created using a transfer technique, which grants it further manipulation as if the surface were wet paint. Warping, smearing, removing parts of the image or re-applying it are a few examples of this manipulation, which allows for other materials to build up into the piece, resulting in a grotesque, textured surface. This kind of mark-making allows the work to simultaneously reflect the landscape and the hand of the artist, becoming a metaphor for humankind's disregard for environmental respect. It is through reflection that viewers may understand the inescapable failure of unnatural containment, and how these failures will further lead to ecological deterioration as well as our own.