The Great Divide

My interest in sacred spaces led me to Banff, in Alberta, Canada in the fall of 2015, inquiring into the subjective nature of internal, lived knowledge that can be sensed but not seen. Situated among the Canadian Rockies, Banff holds a strong energy that trumps human settlement. It lies on the Continental Divide, a metaphor for a passage between realms, life and death, here and elsewhere, internal and external captured in its beautiful environment. It was there I situated my project, The Great Divide. In the late 1980s, a woman known as Star visited several locations in and around Banff on a vision quest in search of the Archangel Mikael. I decided to follow in her footsteps. Using photography and collage, The Great Divide is grounded in the site visits I made. The photographs, collaged with color gels and white tape, serve as a filter for viewing the documented landscapes. Through abstract interpretation they mimic the energetic dimensions present in the locations alluding to that which can’t be seen: the ineffable and intangible matter of energy. The layers of colored gels point toward limitations in our perception and propose what night exist beyond our immediate understanding of being present in a physical location. The mystery of visiting sacred sites serve as a physical way to explore the internal realm of consciousness.