Work samples

  • Burning Away installed at the Georgia Museum of Art, 2024
    Burning Away installed at the Georgia Museum of Art, 2024

    Burning Away is a transformative series created through the intricate chemigram process, which merges painting and photography to push the boundaries of traditional image-making. In this work, I apply substances like honey and oils onto sun-fused silver gelatin paper, producing printed surfaces that are as tactile as they are visual. Within these images lies a profound duality, reflecting both the microscopic and vast-scale impacts of nuclear catastrophe. The prints evoke cellular structures, symbolic of the unseen yet insidious effects of radiation, while simultaneously alluding to the incomprehensible scale of total nuclear war. At the heart of Burning Away is the fragile connection between landscape and the human body, both permanently marked by radiation. When the atomic bomb detonated over Hiroshima, the fireball reached 7,700 degrees Fahrenheit—the surface temperature of the sun. The extreme heat vaporized those at ground zero and left survivors with devastating burns. Many turned to honey, cooking oil, and motor oil as makeshift treatments in the absence of medicine. Printed at human scale, Burning Away embodies the weight of nuclear devastation—on both body and land. This ongoing project invites reflection on the enduring human spirit in the face of catastrophe.

  • Eye Who Witnessed: MASS MoCA's unused building 2021
    Eye Who Witnessed: MASS MoCA's unused building 2021

    Installation view at an unused building at MASS MoCA, MA (2021), formerly home to the Sprague Electric Company, which was commissioned by the U.S. government during World War II to develop capacitors for the first atomic bombs. These bombs were later tested at Los Alamos, NM, and ultimately dropped on Japan. Being in this space—one that played a role in the weapon my grandfather witnessed in Hiroshima—felt like confronting an inherited light, inscribed onto his genes and passed down to me.

  • Sungazing: Installation at Apexart, NY, 2020
    Sungazing: Installation at Apexart, NY, 2020

    On August 6, 1945, at 8:15 AM, my grandfather witnessed the atomic bomb erase nearly everything in Hiroshima. I remember him describing that day as if hundreds of suns had ignited the sky. In response to his memory, I created a series of photographs by exposing Type-C photographic paper to sunlight. The pattern on the print corresponds to my breath—I pulled the paper in front of a small aperture while inhaling, allowing the sunlight to imprint its mark, and paused while exhaling. I repeated this action 108 times, embedding my breath into the paper, a meditative act of remembrance and resilience.

  • Afterimage Requiem: Installation at SECCA, NC, 2018
    Afterimage Requiem: Installation at SECCA, NC, 2018

    Afterimage Requiem is a large-scale visual and sound installation featuring 108 human-scale photograms and a four-channel sound work by my collaborator, Andrew Keiper. The installation examines the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and the deeply intertwined histories of our families. On August 6, 1945, at 8:15 AM, my grandfather witnessed the devastation that consumed Hiroshima, while Keiper’s grandfather, an engineer, had played a role in the bomb’s development as part of the Manhattan Project. Through this work, we confront the echoes of that history—its impact reverberating across generations.

About Kei

Kei Ito (b. 1991) is an interdisciplinary artist whose work is centered around utilizing the conceptual framework of photography to visualize the invisible. Mainly employing camera-less photographic techniques, performance, and artifacts, Ito creates large-scale installations that excavate hidden histories. As a third-generation atomic bomb victim living in the US, Ito employs his generational history as a series of case studies that often applies the language of monuments and… more

Sungazing

On August 6th 1945, at 8:15 AM, my grandfather witnessed a great tragedy that destroyed nearly everything in Hiroshima. He survived the bombing, yet he lost many of his family members from the explosion and radiation poisoning. As an activist and author, my grandfather fought against the use of nuclear weaponry throughout his life, until he too passed away from cancer when I was ten years old. I remember him saying that day in Hiroshima was like hundreds of suns lighting up the sky.

In order to express the connection between the sun and my family history, I have created 108 letter size prints and a 200 foot long scroll, made by exposing Type-C photographic paper to sunlight. The pattern on the prints/scroll corresponds to my breath. In a darkened room, I pulled the paper in front of a small aperture to expose it to the sun while inhaling, and paused when exhaling. I repeated this action until I breathed 108 times. 108 is a number with ritual significance in Japanese Buddhism; to mark the Japanese New Year, bells toll 108 times, ridding us of our evil passions and desires, and purifying our souls.

If the black parts of the print remind you of a shadow, it is the shadow of my breath, which is itself a registration of my life, a life I share with and owe to my grandfather. The mark of the atomic blast upon his life and upon his breath was passed on to me, and you can see it as the shadow of this print.

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Sungazing Prints 
2015, 2018
Unique c-print photograms (sunlight, artist's breath), Dibond mounted
Installation size: 108 x 106 in. (Print: 108 of 8 x 10 in.)

Sungazing Scroll
2015 - ongoing
Unique c-print photogram (sunlight, artist's breath)
12 in. x 150 ft. to 220 ft. depending on the edition

  • Sungazing Print: Apexart 2020
    Sungazing Print: Apexart 2020
    Installation view at Apexart, NYC, NY, (2020)
  • Sungazing Print: Apexart 2020
    Sungazing Print: Apexart 2020

    Installation view at Apexart, NYC, NY, (2020)

  • Sungazing Print: Apexart 2020
    Sungazing Print: Apexart 2020
    Installation view at Apexart, NYC, NY, (2020)
  • Sungazing 1/108
    Sungazing 1/108
  • Sungazing 24/108
    Sungazing 24/108
  • Sungazing Print: SECCA 2019
    Sungazing Print: SECCA 2019
    Installation View at Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art(SECCA), NC (2019)
  • Sungazing Print: Herndon Gallery/ Antioch College 2018
    Sungazing Print: Herndon Gallery/ Antioch College 2018
    Installation view at Herndon Gallery/ Antioch College, Part of the FotoFocus Biennial, OH (2018)
  • Sungazing Scroll: MICA 2017
    Sungazing Scroll: MICA 2017
    Installation view at MICA, MD (2017)
  • Sungazing Scroll: Norton Museum of Art 2019
    Sungazing Scroll: Norton Museum of Art 2019
    Installation view at the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL (2019)
  • Sungazing Scroll (Section)
    Sungazing Scroll (Section)
    A scanned section of Sungazing Scroll 2017

Afterimage Requiem

Afterimage Requiem is a large-scale visual and sound installation containing 108 human-scale photograms and a 4-channel sound work made by my collaborator, Andrew Keiper.

The installation probes the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and the intertwined family histories between Keiper and I. On August 6th 1945, at 8:15 AM, my grandfather witnessed a great tragedy that destroyed nearly everything in Hiroshima. Meanwhile, Keiper’s grandfather was an engineer who participated in the development of the Atomic bomb during the Manhattan Project. Two generations later, Keiper and I are great friends and collaborators which may have been thought to be impossible for the people a few generations ago.

The 108 photograms show shadow negative exposures of my body on the ground, with the viewer looking down upon it. These c-prints were exposed to sunlight due to my grandfather’s description, “that day in Hiroshima was like hundreds of suns lighting up the sky,” haunting me through my artistic practice. The radiation that my grandfather was exposed to pierced through his skin and inscribed itself onto his genes and onto my own; our bodies are now being “captured” through time and history, film and DNA. The number 108 holds significance in Japanese Buddhism, a number that embodies redemption from the evil passions we possess. As Keiper’s sound plays above in the air, my body lies on the ground, our grandfather’s positions are echoed in the space but our stances have changed. Each print is a prayer for the future.

This installation grapples with this history while asserting its pertinence to a contemporary audience living in an increasingly unstable political landscape. My photograms and Keiper’s 4-channel sound work portrays the bomb’s production created using the recordings made at atomic heritage sites in New Mexico and Chicago; the installation seeks mutual understanding while contemplating the roots, sorrow, and scope of the bombing. In an era of overt nuclear crisis unlike any seen in decades, Afterimage Requiem asks the audience to reflect on the ramifications of our current course, and to learn from the past.

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Afterimage Requiem
2018
Unique c-print photograms (artist's body, sunlight, artist's breath), pebble, spot light, 4-ch audio composed by Andrew Paul Keiper
Installation: Various (108 of 30 x various heights in. prints)
 

  • Afterimage Requiem: SECCA 2019
    Afterimage Requiem: SECCA 2019
    Installation view at Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art: SECCA, NC (2019)
  • Afterimage Requiem: Baltimore War Memorial 2018
    Afterimage Requiem: Baltimore War Memorial 2018
    Installation view at Baltimore War Memorial, MD (2018)
  • Afterimage Requiem: Baltimore War Memorial 2018
    Afterimage Requiem: Baltimore War Memorial 2018
    Installation view at Baltimore War Memorial, MD (2018)
  • Afterimage Requiem: Baltimore War Memorial 2018
    Afterimage Requiem: Baltimore War Memorial 2018
    Installation view at Baltimore War Memorial, MD (2018)
  • Afterimage Requiem: Baltimore War Memorial 2018
    Afterimage Requiem: Baltimore War Memorial 2018
    Installation view at Baltimore War Memorial, MD (2018)
  • Afterimage Requiem: Baltimore War Memorial 2018
    Afterimage Requiem: Baltimore War Memorial 2018
    Installation view at Baltimore War Memorial, MD (2018)
  • Afterimage Requiem: Baltimore War Memorial 2018
    Afterimage Requiem: Baltimore War Memorial 2018
  • Afterimage Requiem 1/108
    Afterimage Requiem 1/108
  • Afterimage Requiem 35/108
    Afterimage Requiem 35/108
  • Afterimage Requiem (108 Prints)
    Afterimage Requiem (108 Prints)

Eye who witnessed

Eye who witnessed is a compilation of C-print photograms depicting 108 eyes. This collection of 54 American Downwinders and 54 Japanese a-bomb victims stares out unblinking, homogeneous and anonymous. 108 is a number with ritual significance in Japanese Buddhism; to mark the Japanese New Year, bells toll 108 times, ridding us of our evil passions and desires, and purifying our souls, which can be seen as an act of redemption.

Growing up in Japan, many thought the bombing victims were necessary sacrifices for peace; after moving to America, I heard the same sentiments about Downwinders. Some of the first victims were Americans who worked the first tests unaware of the deadly and invisible threat of radiation. After the war, the US government continued nuclear testing across the nation and these forgotten American casualties, civilians living around testing sites, are now known as Downwinders.

The original images were curated from books, video interviews and images I gathered from my own family album. The prints were then mixed-up before installing, making it unclear on which one is a Japanese or a US victim; nuclear weapons affect everyone the same no matter their nationality. As they collectively stare back at us, their eyes become a monument of nameless atomic testimonies. Will we too become a witness of a radiated light and be sacrificed for the next so-called “peace”?

The temporal installation took place during my studio residency at MASS MoCA, 2021. While there, I learnt that most of the buildings where MASS MoCA currently resides belonged to Sprague Electronic during WWll. The company was commissioned by the US government to develop a special capacitor for the first Atomic Bombs which was then tested at Los Alamos, NM and later dropped in Japan to end WWll. With kind permission from the museum and Assets for Artists, I was able to create a temporary monument in one of the museum’s unused buildings which has been almost untouched since the Sprague Electric era.

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Eye who witnessed
2020-2021
Installation at Gregory Allicar Museum: Unique c-print photograms (historical archive, sunlight, artist's breath), wooden frame
13 ft. x 9 ft. x 1.5 in. (108 of 8 x 10 in. prints)

Installation at MASS MoCA:Unique c-print photograms (historical archive, sunlight, artist's breath), paper box, wooden chair, construction light
Various (108 of 8 x 10 in.)
 

  • Eye who witnessed: Installation at the Gregory Allicar Museum 2023
    Eye who witnessed: Installation at the Gregory Allicar Museum 2023

    2020-2021

    Unique c-print photograms (historical archive, sunlight, artist's breath), wooden frame

    Installation: 13 ft. x 9 ft. x 1.5 in. (108 of 8 x 10 in. prints)

  • Detail of Eye who witnessed: Installation at the Gregory Allicar Museum 2023
    Detail of Eye who witnessed: Installation at the Gregory Allicar Museum 2023

    2020-2021

    Unique c-print photograms (historical archive, sunlight, artist's breath), wooden frame

    Installation: 13 ft. x 9 ft. x 1.5 in. (108 of 8 x 10 in. prints)

  • Detail of Eye who witnessed: Installation at the Gregory Allicar Museum 2023
    Detail of Eye who witnessed: Installation at the Gregory Allicar Museum 2023

    2020-2021

    Unique c-print photograms (historical archive, sunlight, artist's breath), wooden frame

    Installation: 13 ft. x 9 ft. x 1.5 in. (108 of 8 x 10 in. prints)

  • Eye who witnessed
    Eye who witnessed
  • Eye who witnessed
    Eye who witnessed
  • Eye who witnessed
    Eye who witnessed
  • Eye who witnessed: MASS MoCA's unused building 2021
    Eye who witnessed: MASS MoCA's unused building 2021

    Installation view at an unused building at MASS MoCA, MA (2021), which the building once hosted the factory of Sprague Electronic during WWll. The company was commissioned by the US government to develop a special capacitor for making the first Atomic Bombs which was then tested at Los Alamos, NM and later dropped in Japan to end the WWll.

  • Eye who witnessed: MASS MoCA's unused building 2021
    Eye who witnessed: MASS MoCA's unused building 2021

    Installation view at an unused building at MASS MoCA, MA (2021), which the building once hosted the factory of Sprague Electronic during WWll. The company was commissioned by the US government to develop a special capacitor for making the first Atomic Bombs which was then tested at Los Alamos, NM and later dropped in Japan to end the WWll.

  • Eye who witnessed: MASS MoCA's unused building 2021
    Eye who witnessed: MASS MoCA's unused building 2021

    Installation view at an unused building at MASS MoCA, MA (2021), which the building once hosted the factory of Sprague Electronic during WWll. The company was commissioned by the US government to develop a special capacitor for making the first Atomic Bombs which was then tested at Los Alamos, NM and later dropped in Japan to end the WWll.

  • Eye who witnessed: MASS MoCA's unused building 2021
    Eye who witnessed: MASS MoCA's unused building 2021

Aborning New Light

Aborning New Light is a video installation from my larger New Light series. The visuals were mined from archives of nuclear testing on American soil. From the declassified nuclear testing film footage, the 1000s of film stills were printed onto transparencies, exposed onto light sensitive paper and finally, he rescanned the processed prints back into a single film (sometimes objects like Godzilla figurines or Enola Gay toys were placed on the darkroom paper during the exposure process). This new video, now with my own hand and process creating an artistic intervention, is also played in reverse, the explosions shrinking instead of expanding. Houses, school buses, and mannequins are reconstructed before our eyes while time counts down to a period before nuclear weapons and their extreme proliferation across the globe.

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Aborning New Light
2021-2023
Looped video (scanned and sequenced c-print prints made with US nuclear testing footage, sunlight, and artist's breath), monitor, monitor mount
Looped 2min 43sec
Installation: Various

Aborning New Light (public projection)
2021
Public projection at Daniels and Fisher Tower in Denver as a public art project organized by Night Lights Denver: People’s Projector and the Center for Fine Art Photography
 

  • Aborning New Light: Daniels and Fisher Tower 2021
    Aborning New Light: Daniels and Fisher Tower 2021

    Documentation of the video projected on the Daniels and Fisher Tower in Denver; hosted by Center for Fine Art Photography/Night Lights Denver.

  • Aborning New Light: Daniels and Fisher Tower 2021
    Aborning New Light: Daniels and Fisher Tower 2021
    Documentation of the video projected on the Daniels and Fisher Tower in Denver; hosted by Center for Fine Art Photography/Night Lights Denver.
  • Aborning New Light: Daniels and Fisher Tower 2021
    Aborning New Light: Daniels and Fisher Tower 2021
    Documentation of the video projected on the Daniels and Fisher Tower in Denver; hosted by Center for Fine Art Photography/Night Lights Denver.
  • Aborning New Light: Daniels and Fisher Tower 2021
    Documentation of the video projected on the Daniels and Fisher Tower in Denver; hosted by Center for Fine Art Photography/Night Lights Denver.
  • Aborning New Light video
  • Aborning New Light installation at the Gregory Allicar Museum 2023
    Aborning New Light installation at the Gregory Allicar Museum 2023

    This installation has the same video playing at separate times.

  • Detail of Aborning New Light installation at the Gregory Allicar Museum 2023
    Detail of Aborning New Light installation at the Gregory Allicar Museum 2023
  • Detail of Aborning New Light installation at the Gregory Allicar Museum 2023
    Detail of Aborning New Light installation at the Gregory Allicar Museum 2023
  • Detail of Aborning New Light installation at the Gregory Allicar Museum 2023
    Detail of Aborning New Light installation at the Gregory Allicar Museum 2023

Total Sense of Absorption

Total Sense of Absorption is a multimedia piece that resulted from a live performance on February 28th, 2023.

The performance involved me wearing a hazmat suit while holding an uranium glass bowl - a style of glass made with uranium popular during the 1950s - filled with photo developer and walking on B&W darkroom paper. During this walk, I took 452 steps and stopped every so often to re-dip my bare feet into the developer. The resulting image from these steps is a 100ft long black and white American flag. 

The number of steps correlates directly to the number of successfully cleaned up Superfund Sites - sites of contamination due to varying causes across the United States. Currently, there are 1,329 sites that still need to be cleaned. Inside of the footsteps I have scratched the date and time of the clean up of these sites as well as the ones responsible for the contamination. 

This large scale photogram highlights and celebrates the expurgation of the 452 sites and recognizes the monumental task of healing the land’s trauma. Conversely, it also draws attention to the large amount of hazardous sites that still exist - the blank areas of the flag normally where the white stripes would go gives plenty of space for more footsteps to be added serving as both a record and call to action. 

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Total Sense of Absorption 
2023
Performance using silver gelatin black and white photography paper, photo developer, disposal hazmat suit, uranium glass bowl, artist's body
42 in. x 99 ft.
 

  • Total Sense of Absorption Performance: 2023
    Total Sense of Absorption Performance: 2023
  • Total Sense of Absorption Performance
    Total Sense of Absorption Performance

    Here, I filled a uranium glass bowl with photo developer to draw on the Black and White darkroom paper. 

  • Total Sense of Absorption Performance
    Total Sense of Absorption Performance

    I suited up in safety gear except for my hands and feet. 

  • Total Sense of Absorption Performance
    Total Sense of Absorption Performance

    I drew an American flag with my feet.

  • Total Sense of Absorption Performance
    Total Sense of Absorption Performance

    I continuously had to dip my feet into the photo developer. 

  • Total Sense of Absorption Performance
    Total Sense of Absorption Performance

    Documentation of the performance and crowd.

  • Total Sense of Absorption Performance
    Total Sense of Absorption Performance

    ocumentation of processing the 100 ft piece in the darkroom.

  • Detail of Total Sense of Absorption
    Detail of Total Sense of Absorption

    Later on, I etched the site name, location, and date of every Superfund Sites that had been cleaned up by the time of the performance.

  • Total Sense of Absorption: Documentation of the final piece
    Total Sense of Absorption: Documentation of the final piece
  • Total Sense of Absorption Video: 2023, 19:17 mins.

Each Tolling Sun

Each Tolling Sun is a multimedia installation immersed in the legacy of nuclear tragedy and symbolism, delving into the profound impact of nuclear warfare through various artistic elements. At its core is a circular metal sheet, deliberately distorted by 108 strikes from a sledgehammer—a poignant representation echoing the symbolism found in Japanese Buddhism, where 108 signifies purification and renewal.

Surrounding this centerpiece, 108 vivid photogram prints unfold a visual journey, capturing the transformative hues of orange, red, and yellow circles against stark black or red backgrounds. These circles, mirroring the altered metal, symbolize a profound odyssey through 108 iterations, intertwining personal history with broader narratives.

This body of work draws inspiration from my grandfather's experience as a Hiroshima bombing survivor, with the sun serving as a potent symbol embodying both life and destruction. The deliberate strikes upon the metal plate manifest my palpable frustration with contemporary nuclear tensions, symbolizing a fervent call for global harmony and disarmament. The series of circles exhibited in the gallery space distill this frustration into representations of 108 suns, serving as visual echoes of my vision and mission.

The deliberate exposure of photographic paper to sunlight captures the gradual decay and transformation of the metal, aligning with the spiritual significance of the number 108. 


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Each Tolling Sun 
2023
Unique c-print photogram (hammered steel disk, sunlight artist's breath), sledge hammer, hammered steel disk, video projection with 2-channel audio.
Installation: Various ( 108 of 20 x 21 in. prints, a 8 x 35 x 3.5 in. sledge hammer, a 18 in.  diameter steel disk, and a 1 hr 36 min 39 sec video and audio
 

 

  • Each Tolling Sun: Installation at Hilliard Art Museum 2023
    Each Tolling Sun: Installation at Hilliard Art Museum 2023
  • Each Tolling Sun: Installation at Hilliard Art Museum 2023
    Each Tolling Sun: Installation at Hilliard Art Museum 2023
  • Each Tolling Sun: Installation at Hilliard Art Museum 2023
    Each Tolling Sun: Installation at Hilliard Art Museum 2023
  • Each Tolling Sun: Installation at Hilliard Art Museum 2023
    Each Tolling Sun: Installation at Hilliard Art Museum 2023
  • Each Tolling Sun: Installation at Hilliard Art Museum 2023
    Each Tolling Sun: Installation at Hilliard Art Museum 2023
  • Each Tolling Sun
    Each Tolling Sun
  • Each Tolling Sun
    Each Tolling Sun
  • Each Tolling Sun: Installation at Hilliard Art Museum 2023
    Each Tolling Sun: Installation at Hilliard Art Museum 2023
  • Each Tolling Sun: Installation at Hilliard Art Museum 2023
    Each Tolling Sun: Installation at Hilliard Art Museum 2023
  • Each Tolling Sun Video Documentation

    Edited Video Work starts at 3:35 min

Embodied Spectrum

Embodied Spectrum brings together language and image in an immersive installation. Here, I combine multiple modalities to evoke experiences, relationships, and physical phenomena that are difficult to represent in visual form. 

The installation is centered on slide reproductions of the first photographic image ever taken of the sun, flanked on either side by two poems written by me. This work evokes the unique connection between the sun and human-generated nuclear energy. In their reliance on nuclear processes, the sun and nuclear weapons are linked, although their fundamental impacts on humankind are diametrically opposed; the sun’s energy is the foundation of life on Earth, while nuclear weapons embody the possibility of its total destruction. 

Taken in 1845, the image at the center of Embodied Spectrum pre-dates the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by 100 years. By the standards of a human lifespan, these are distant events. In the span of the Earth’s history, they occur in a single epoch, a short period of drastic acceleration in both the productive and destructive capacities of humankind.

The poetic texts include references to Amaterasu, the Goddess of the Sun in Japanese mythology, and Ra, the Egyptian Sun God. These two beings reflect our relationship with the Sun throughout human history. With the creation of nuclear weapons came the dawn of a new mythology, one centered on human “mastery” of the Sun’s power. 

Embodied Spectrum begins with a singular moment of an individual life and expands out to consider the history of nations, the half-lives of nuclear fallout, and the deep time of the sun's energy. In the process, the work considers the weight of history on our most intimate relationships and the need to grapple with the human capacity for both creation and destruction. 

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Embodied Spectrum
Light Installation (Synchronized Slide Projectors, Arduino, Slide Films, Wooden Table, Steel Plates, Concrete Bricks)
Installation: 296 x 240 x 120 in.

  • Embodied Spectrom: MoCA Arlington (2025)

    Documentation of the installation.

  • Embodied Spectrum
    Embodied Spectrum
  • Embodied Spectrum
    Embodied Spectrum
  • Embodied Spectrum
    Embodied Spectrum
  • Embodied Spectrum
    Embodied Spectrum
  • Embodied Spectrum
    Embodied Spectrum
  • Embodied Spectrum
    Embodied Spectrum
  • Embodied Spectrum
    Embodied Spectrum
  • Embodied Spectrum
    Embodied Spectrum
  • Embodied Spectrum (Poem Text)
    Embodied Spectrum (Poem Text)

All That the Shadows Hold

All That the Shadows Hold was created to mark the 80th anniversary of the first nuclear weapon detonation—the Trinity Test on July 16, 1945. On the morning of July 16, 2025, I traveled to a site near the original test grounds in New Mexico, where the rising sun aligns closely with the direction of the Trinity fireball. At dawn, I unrolled 100 feet of light-sensitive photographic paper across the desert floor and exposed it to the first light of day.

The resulting sun-fused scroll—eventually rendered completely black—functions as an abstract record of exposure, duration, and erasure. By allowing sunlight to overwhelm the surface, the work echoes the original flash that inaugurated the atomic age, while refusing literal representation. The image holds no detail, only aftermath.

All That the Shadows Hold exists as a shadow monument: a gesture of remembrance shaped by absence rather than spectacle. It asks what remains after illumination, and how memory persists when images collapse under their own intensity.

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All That the Shadows Hold
2025
Scroll (light sensitive paper, sunlight), found rocks, video documentation of the performance, wooden platform
240 x 60 x 384 in.

  • All That the Shadows Hold
    All That the Shadows Hold
  • All That the Shadows Hold
    All That the Shadows Hold
  • All That the Shadows Hold
    All That the Shadows Hold
  • All That the Shadows Hold
    All That the Shadows Hold
  • All That the Shadows Hold
    All That the Shadows Hold
  • All That the Shadows Hold (Video Documentation)
    All That the Shadows Hold (Video Documentation)
  • All That the Shadows Hold (Video Documentation)
    All That the Shadows Hold (Video Documentation)
  • All That the Shadows Hold (Video Documentation)
    All That the Shadows Hold (Video Documentation)
  • All That the Shadows Hold (Video Documentation)
    All That the Shadows Hold (Video Documentation)
  • All That the Shadows Hold (Video Documentation)
    All That the Shadows Hold (Video Documentation)

Penumbra’s Skin

Penumbra’s Skin is a site-specific installation set within an abandoned building in Baltimore. A slow-moving spotlight, mounted at chest height on a motorized pedestal, rotates in a straight path across the large space. Positioned in front of the beam is a thick slab of uranium glass—an early 20th-century material once prized for its luminous green glow. As the beam filters through the glass, it casts a radioactive hue across the room, illuminating fragments of the past: discarded signage, mic stands, umbrellas, a plastic flamingo, and a green hazmat suit slumped in one corner.

The light brushes across the columns, throws long shadows, and eventually lands on the viewer. Though they remain outside the installation—barred from entering—the sweeping beam makes contact, briefly touching their skin, and then their eyes, leaving a ghostly afterimage. The viewer becomes both witness and participant, marked by light.

The uranium glass at the center of Penumbra’s Skin casts an otherworldly green hue, filtering the spotlight into something both beautiful and ominous. Once popular between the 1880s and 1920s as decorative glassware, uranium glass was admired for its uncanny glow under UV light. The slab used in this work likely originated as raw bulk material, never formed into domestic objects. After 1945, all uranium—including that used in glass production—was seized by the U.S. government, its aesthetic use eclipsed by its role in the atomic age.

Here, that history is refracted—literally and metaphorically. The glowing glass is no longer an object of beauty or utility, but a relic of a turning point in human history: the moment uranium was transformed from household novelty to instrument of mass destruction. By positioning the viewer outside the installation, unable to intervene, Penumbra’s Skin underscores the paradox of witnessing—seeing without touching, knowing without undoing.

The space hums with a low, unsettling drone composed of layered nuclear warning sirens. As the spotlight sweeps, it not only reveals, but implicates—creating a rhythm of dread, absence, and distorted time. The four support columns in the room offer moments of total darkness, where the light cannot reach, suggesting that some truths remain buried.

Set only 38 miles from Washington, D.C. and within the 55 mile nuclear fallout zone, Penumbra’s Skin hovers between past and possible futures. It is both an aftermath and a warning—an irradiated mirror held up to the present, where the consequences of light, power, and silence still unfold.

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Each Tolling Sun 
2025
Site-specific installation (Theater light, uranium glass slab, slab holder, motorized base, Found objects)

  • Penumbra’s Skin
  • Penumbra’s Skin
    Penumbra’s Skin
  • Penumbra’s Skin
    Penumbra’s Skin
  • Penumbra’s Skin
    Penumbra’s Skin
  • Penumbra’s Skin
    Penumbra’s Skin
  • Penumbra’s Skin
    Penumbra’s Skin
  • Penumbra’s Skin
    Penumbra’s Skin
  • Penumbra’s Skin
    Penumbra’s Skin
  • Penumbra’s Skin
    Penumbra’s Skin
  • Penumbra’s Skin
    Penumbra’s Skin

Reconstruction of Forgetting

Reconstruction of Forgetting is a project that navigates the interplay between memory, history, and the potential for renewal, viewed through the lens of personal and historical legacies. Using cameraless photographic techniques, and found historical & familial objects, and video documentation of the process, the work examines the delicate balance between remembering and forgetting.

Garments such as my grandfather's shirt-owned by him in the years following his survival of the Hiroshima atomic bombing, as he later dedicated his life to peace advocacy-are soaked in developer solution and pressed directly onto photographic paper, "fixing" their presence. Their forms gradually emerge on black-and-white darkroom paper like ghostly footsteps, a transformation echoed in the accompanying video documentation. These objects, imbued with profound personal and historical significance, evoke both the fragility and persistence of memory.

Reconstruction of Forgetting bridges personal and collective memory, crafting a visual dialogue that resonates with broader historical narratives while remaining deeply intimate. By condensing these impressions into a unified space, the project invites viewers to reflect on how memory is carried, reconciled, and transformed-held in tension between permanence and impermanence.

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Burning Away
2024-ongoing
Unique silver gelatin photograms (various clothes, photo developer), Wooden Frames
108 x 252 x 2.00 in.

 

  • Reconstruction of Forgetting
    Reconstruction of Forgetting
  • Reconstruction of Forgetting
    Reconstruction of Forgetting
  • Reconstruction of Forgetting
    Reconstruction of Forgetting
  • Reconstruction of Forgetting
    Reconstruction of Forgetting
  • Reconstruction of Forgetting (Process documentation stills)
    Reconstruction of Forgetting (Process documentation stills)
  • Reconstruction of Forgetting Print #76
    Reconstruction of Forgetting Print #76
  • Reconstruction of Forgetting (Process documentation stills)
    Reconstruction of Forgetting (Process documentation stills)
  • Reconstruction of Forgetting Print #1
    Reconstruction of Forgetting Print #1
  • Reconstruction of Forgetting Print #35
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