Celestial Body Model explores the potential to photographically convey intangible experiences emanating from practical processes or physical activities within deep ecology. Deep ecology is an environmental philosophy that observes how psychological and spiritual disarray can be attributed to the ‘illusion of separation’ between humans and the rest of the natural world.
Several deep ecology workshops were attended and engaged in for over a year. For this body of work, the activity Earth as Peppercorn was re-presented in photographic forms. This activity invites workshop participants to slowly walk through a scale model of the solar system to experience its vastness of space compared to planet proportions. Readily available items such as melons, pins and chickpeas were used in the activity and photographic images as representations for each planet.
These works employ different photographic techniques to greatly slow down and extend the photographic process of making an image, including numerous iterations of re-photographic techniques, hand printing in the darkroom and hand toning. Creating these images took over six months and reflected deep ecology themes of connectedness, observation and mindfulness to emphasise process over outcome.