traces within, 2026

Archival Pigment Print, various sizes

Traces Within honors the iconic cypress trees of The Sea Ranch lost to the waterborne pathogen Phytophthora. Through layered mapping, I combine stump cross-sections with traces of logging, roads, trails, tire tracks, geological faults, hydrological patterns, trees, and roots to create ecological portraits of a changing landscape. The underlying cartographic layer changes from image to image, revealing different histories and systems embedded within the same organic form. The tree rings become intertwined with the marks of human movement and geological time, transforming the stump into an archive of place. The maps are not simply illustrating why the pathogen spread; they reveal what has passed through and shaped this landscape. Rather than focusing on disease itself, the work explores ecological memory—how landscapes retain traces of what has lived, moved, been altered, and disappeared.The resulting images consider the forest not as a static environment, but as a living record in which loss, history, and transformation remain embedded.

Thanks to Chris Lee Forest Pathologist and Christopher Tominello-Ramirez, from Cal Poly Humboldt for providing the microscopic images.