Hi, my name is Julianne Nash.
I live in Red Hook, Brooklyn, with my fiancee and my pup.
I'm originally
from Massachusetts on the South Shore, halfway between Boston and Cape Cod.
My practice is I make photographs like
large scale landscapes where I combine multiple photographs into one.
I use a lot of compositing techniques and algorithms that are inherent
to Photoshop, such as focus stacking or stacking via a smart object.
So there's like a lot of blurring and image layering, a lot of
just like the density of photographs in my work
and so right now I'm working on two projects.
One is very climate oriented.
I call it Ennuipocalypse,
Ennuipocalypse is a term that was newly developed
by climate scientists to describe the rate of extinction
because it's happening on such a slow day to day time scale,
but on the geological scale, it's happening very quickly.
So that work, I'm looking more at kind of subtle
signs of climate change in our backyard or just like in,
you know, I even have gotten some pictures just down in Brooklyn, kind of like
Floyd Bennett Field, where invasive species are just like going rapid.
And then the other project is called The Exiles, where I'm creating
these kind of surrealistic landscapes that are just
a part of my soul.
I guess you could say they're me kind of processing my.
I grew up in a kind of tumultuous environment,
so it's me kind of processing my childhood and processing my complex trauma
in the way that I hold it in myself.
But I reflecting that onto the landscape
and kind of like these voids of nothingness
in the landscape.
The work that I'm showing downstairs
is actually from my graduate school work where I was really interested in how
computers were processing images.
So I initially was inspired by using film,
but I was like degrading the film itself because it was a metaphor
for my grandmother going blind and how I could inherit that same vision loss.
So I was still kind of like obsessed with that idea
of like sight being rendered in photographs.
So I started to look into that with Photoshop and using algorithms
and layering techniques to kind of like hint
to like the degradation of the image and the degradation of vision.
And naturally invasive species
kind of like trickled into the work because,
I mean, plants
grow in a very algorithmic way.
So they worked very well within these algorithms,
like the way the shapes lined up and when they didn't
was still beautiful versus like looking very like, digitize
it still had like a natural element to them.
And I mean, I've always been deeply inspired by the environment
and I think the fact that the invasive species kind of trickled in was like
my subconscious telling me like, that's what I was really drawn to.
Like, I was more drawn to what can I say?
What can I get out of the environment versus like the idea of vision,
which I was initially on.
I have a relationship
with the natural world that I have a hard time putting into words. I
just feel connected to myself
and like the universe when I'm in a forest
or when I'm on a beach and like I'm in the solace of Mother Nature.
And maybe it has something to do with the fact that I was raised really
religious and have left religion
and that I still kind of needed a place
to put that lot like that belonging. The
connection to the world,
I guess, or connection to something greater than me.
I always kind of feel like I worship the earth in a sense.
I like the forest spirits are like, what
guide me through life.
That's like how I have reached like spirituality in a sense now.
I think with my climate work, it's more about like a call to action.
It's more kind of showing you that like even the things
that you think are okay are really not that there's a lot of signs of
how bad the extinction has already gotten thus far.
But for my exile work,
I think that it's more of a sense of belonging where I am figuring out
who I am as a person through the natural world.
Well, I will never make an NFT.
I can say that for certain.
The amount of energy that is used to a song to do a single
transaction for an NFT is horrifying and I refuse to be a part of that.
So I can say that much for certain.
There are a lot of, I guess, moral boundaries that get crossed with A.I.
creating images and like, what are they sourced from?
Are they rooted in racism or are they rooted in like just,
you know, like it's a complicated entity.
And I don't think that I am well versed enough to really take a stance on it
yet I'm playing with them sometimes.
I have been surprised by the outcomes and
am curious where it goes.
Me too.
Yeah, I'm a little scared, you know, like it's
you don't know where it's going to take like who is training that?
Is it Mark Zuckerberg?
Like if he's training it, we’re fucked.
my gosh, I feel like I'm a different person than pre-COVID.
I feel like it just changed who I am.
I am like, exasperated the chronic anxiety I always lived with,
and it was kind of like, Oh fuck, I need to get a handle on this.
So I spent a lot of the past two years just kind of like
working on my mental health and that in turn, I created a lot
because when you're kind of in that hibernation mode,
I was in a very creative mode and I've made a lot of work
that I'm very proud of in the past few years.
So, oh my God, everything now, like what doesn't make me mad
these days are government is just a piece of shit.
Can I say that our government is incompetent?
They're just taking rights away from everyone, just ruining our lives,
letting corporations just destroy the environment.
Like I could go on and on.
Like, I am so frustrated with America right now
I guess I have a two part answer to that.
Because I think that the thing that changed the way I approach
conscious, like a conscious mindset and sustainability
was when my favorite doctor, Dr.
Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, made that Venn diagram
about like, what brings you joy, what needs to be done?
And like, where do your skills lie?
And at the center of that Venn diagram is what your climate action should be.
And for a long time I kind of struggled with the fact that I'm an artist.
Like, what can I add to this discourse?
Like pictures. Like what?
What pictures will make a difference, really.
I'm not a scientist and I'm overwhelmed by the science
sometimes that I have like
like in a horrible existential crisis sometimes.
Oh, and I think about the planet that I have found ways
that you can use your own skills to approach being a conscious consumer.
And I think that's the exact term as my second part.
That is like the conscious consumer is the important aspect.
You know, you can't fix it all in one day.
You can't kind of like
get all of the chemicals out of your life and live completely sustainably.
It's kind of just like
having the thought process, you know, like, do I really need
that cup of coffee because that piece of plastic
is going to be in the environment for the rest of my life.
Just kind of having that thought process be a part
of your thinking when you are purchasing anything just.
And I think that the longer I've had that, the more I've kind of like
started to use the purchase more sustainably in other forms,
like for clothes, you know, like buying, you know, natural fabrics
or naturally dyed fabrics and not something that's using slave labor.
You know, it's you kind of just like bite off little pieces as you go.
And at a certain point you're living more sustainably.
And that's the goal.