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| This Land |
An ongoing limited edition print series, This Land explores newly discovered landscapes found in NASA and and European Space Agency archives. The series references the Woody Guthrie song This Land is Your Land, written in 1940 as a critical response to Irving Berlin's God Bless America. Guthrie's song romanced about the American landscape while also protesting its privatization and the treatment of Dust Bowl and Depression era refugees. In my This Land series I puzzle over the flawed concept of divine blessing and the provinciality of an Earth-bound conception of 'land,' as well as a reconsideration of what 'our land' could mean in a solar system full of new worlds. The series is a meditation on how science re-scales our perspectives by disrupting fixed assumptions concerning our place in the universe, what is ours to possess, and how we fit in.
This Land, Series III #1, V2, 2022; 47x33 inches (framed)
EARTH: Anza-Borrego Desert. Data: Google Earth/Digital Globe
COMET: 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Data: ESA/Rosetta/OSIRIS team
MARS: Gully Deposits in Hale Crater. Data: HIRISE Camera/Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter/NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Limited Edition archival pigment print
This Land v2, 2017/22; 47x33 inches (framed)
EARTH: Slopes of Kilimanjaro Volcano, Tanzania, 2016. Data: Google Earth; Digital Globe; CNES/Atrium
MARS: Sun-Facing Gully Deposits in Hale Crater, 2009. Data: HIRISE Camera, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter; NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Limited edition archival pigment print
Right:
This Land, Series 3, #4, 2022; 47x33 inches (framed)
ENCELADUS, icy satellite of Saturn; Data: Cassini-Huygens spacecraft, NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
IO, volcanic satellite of Jupiter; Data: Voyager 1 spacecraaft, NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
MOON, cratered satellite of Earth; Data: Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
Limited edition archival pigment print
Tiny Galaxy #1 (M51: 60,000 light-years across), 2023;
Limited edition, Color–added archival pigment print; 31 x 31 inches, (framed)
Original data source: NASA/ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Tiny Galaxy #2 (M104: 60,000 light years across), 2023;
Limited edition, Color–added archival pigment print; 31 x 31 inches, (framed)
Original data source: NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI), and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Tiny Galaxy #3 (NGC 2008: 94,486 light-years across), 2023;
Limited edition, Color–added archival pigment print; 31 x 31 inches, (framed)
Original data source: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Bellini
This Land (Asteroid 2015 TB145), 2022; 40x44.5 inches (framed)
Data: Radar image using 70-meter DSS-14 antenna, Goldstone, California;
Green Bank Radio Telescope, West Virginia | NASA/JPL-Caltech/GSSR/NRAO/AUI/NSF
Spatial resolution 4 meters/pixel
Limited edition archival print
Left: Asteroid 2015 TB145 at 80 x 71.5 inches; Right: detail.
Asteroid (Close-Up), 2022
L-R: #5, #3, #1
Limited edition archival prints, 30x30in. each, framed
Images above, source locations.
This Land, (Planets 3 & 4), 2016-2023
Contiguous still images, digitally processed archival pigment print
20x34 inches (framed)
Top image: EARTH, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Arizona
Original source: National Park Service
Bottom image: MARS, Rocknest, Point Lake Area
Original source: Curiosity Rover, NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
DETAIL:
This Land, (Lands 3 & 4), 2016/2022
Wall projection, dimensions variable
Sequence 1
Left: Bull Pasture, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Arizona, USA, Earth; Photo: The National Park Service.
Right: Curiosity Rover at Rocknest, Mars; Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS.
Sequence 2
Left: Rocky Mountains, Colorado, USA, Earth; Photo: Chris Helzer, The Prairie Ecologist; prarieecologist.com.
Right: Curiosity Rover at Yellowknife Bay, Mars; Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS.
Sequence 3
Left: EARTH, Isle of Jura, Scotland, Great Britain, UK; Photo: Jurainfo.com.
Right: MARS, Spirit Rover at Home Plate Plateau; Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell University.
This Land, (Rosetta/Bierstadt), 2022
Limited edition inkjet print; 20x30 inches (framed)
Left: Rosetta Spacecraft, Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, 2016 (300 million miles from Earth).
Right: Albert Bierstadt, Mirror Lake, Yosemite Valley,(b/w detail), 1864; oil on canvas.
Rosetta: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA.
Bierstadt: Santa Barbara Museum of Art painting collection.
stephen at stephennowlin dot com
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