Salvage

Salvage

Salvage is an extension of my series The State of Things. In The State of Things, I typically disguised the origins of my images by rotating them such that the center of gravity was changed and the image became destabilized. The source material for Salvage is the same – photographs I shoot in scrap metal yards – however, I am now being more direct about the source of the image by maintaining its original orientation. I want you, the viewer, to understand the gravity of what is pictured (as in both its seriousness and the natural force that makes things fall to earth). My addition of plants grew out of my experience of and initial annoyance at the weedy plants in the scrap yard that were getting in my way of seeing the angular forms of the junk. But then I started to think of the weeds differently – more as heroes that survive in any conditions. They are irrepressible, perhaps invasive in terms of plant life, but they are living, resilient organisms, symbols of a form of nature surviving despite all our destruction of the planet. They represent what remains, the way plants reclaim spaces that humans have abandoned. So, I have added and highlighted plants in the foreground. While I am angry at our over-consumption and environmental destruction – the chaos we humans wreak upon the planet – plants and their regenerative abilities give me a small glimmer of hope for the future.

— Susan Brenner