Lost Souls is a long term project taking the urban landscape as a metaphor for our insulation from the natural world. As the world’s population becomes increasingly attracted to living in large conurbations, our connection to the environment becomes increasingly fragile.
In the heart of London’s financial district the human figure is shown in a dark bubble, lost in thought oblivious to the world around them. Attention is taken by the screens of phones held by scurrying figures where the immediate is of primary concern. A broken screen interrupts that connection and throws the present into a distant, deep time. This contrast shows itself in unexpected and ignored corners of the city where nature is finding its own way through the concrete fabric. These areas act as a metaphor for natures ability to find its own way but also how we ignore it at our own peril. The abstract cityscapes are shown without context and therefore elude the element of knowable scale. The effect is to wonder whether these are landscapes in the macro or micro, nature studied as close ups or as larger weather systems seen from space. The stalactites formed by years of dripping water hint at time as a period beyond our own existence and provide a context and contrast to the day to day culture of our cities. Here we are thrown back to a deep geological time, even though it could be seen at our feet if we bothered to look.
This project provides a nudge for us to look up, look around and notice even the smallest and most inconsequential elements that surround us. The signs that nature and life give us are there to see if we look carefully and mindfully. It is our senses that we must trust and reconnect with before we lose that most natural of our human instincts at our own cost.