Standing Rock

In a time when the Ontario government continues to sell off protected and ecologically significant lands, Standing Rock reflects on the fragile relationship between progress, profit, and place. The series takes its cue from the land surveyor’s self-levelling laser, a tool designed to measure, divide, and transform the landscape.

Each photograph features a distinct beam of coloured light that cuts across rock faces, caves, and forests, illuminating the terrain as both subject and witness. The light becomes a stand-in for human presence and intervention, tracing the invisible boundaries that define ownership and control.

Standing Rock asks what happens when we no longer see land as living but as inventory. Through colour, light, and stillness, the work considers our shared responsibility to the spaces that shape us and the unseen forces that continue to alter them.