American fine art photographer Barbara Kyne is interested in how we perceive the world and the connection between all living things. As an artist she asks fundamental questions about the nature of reality such as, who are we, and how are we related to the cosmos. Underlying themes in her work are intelligence and nature, eco- sustainability, and a philosophy of life that collapses the dualism between science and religion.
In A Crack in the World: Five Acres in Mariposa, Kyne imagines what the consciousness of plants might be. What do they know? How do they feel? How do they interact with other species? All the photographs in the book were taken on five acres of wild land at Kyne’s weekend retreat outside of Mariposa, California in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. She combines her senses and the camera’s optics to cast her “camera- being” as a unique species searching for clues to the reality that is outside our limited human senses.
Kyne says: “The sentience of all living entities and our shared consciousness jumps out at me as I peer through what seems like a crack in the world that allows me to begin to perceive some of its secrets. Orbs pop and streaks of light dance through the layered dimensions of land and sky. Perception shifts and the small becomes outsize and the distant alive. I observe the cycles of life, death, and rebirth and am struck by the inextricable connection between pathos and joy.”
Whether observing brilliance, darkness or some place in between, these fresh, layered and technically complex images examine the possibilities in the unsensed and unimagined and inspire empathy for all sentient beings and the planet that sustains them.
Barbara Kyne, In A Crack in the World: Five Acres in Mariposa
Published by Daylight Books
$45.00 US / $58.50 CAN
www.daylightbooks.org
