©Naomi White, I Had My Recurring Dream Last Night, 2024 Original and found photographs, archival pigment prints, archival glue, fire and ash, encaustic 18×24”

Each year during Earth Week I curate a collection of photographic projects from artists who are working to make the often-invisible nature of the global climate and the ecological crisis more visible using conceptual, lens-based art techniques. The arts – and the visual arts in particular – have a unique capacity to confront audiences with uncomfortable truths, provoke meaningful discussion, foster empathy, and inspire individuals to take action on today’s most pressing issues.

Today, we’re looking at Naomi White‘s project, Landscapes of Illusion and Possibilities.

These bodies of work are linked by this thematic lens: making the often-invisible nature of the global climate and the ecological crisis more visible using conceptual, lens-based art techniques.

©Naomi White, 2024 Radical Hope , Tumultuous Waters Original and found photographs, archival pigment prints, archival glue, fire and ash, encaustic 18×24”

Landscapes of Illusion and Possibilities 

Timothy O’Sullivan first photographed the Civil War while assisting Matthew Brady, and later produced survey photographs of the American West for the federal government. Often working under grueling conditions where he traversed unpaved terrain with a horse-drawn wagon carrying chemicals and lenses, his images are some of the earliest visual records of these landscapes. His images depict the land as it existed long before settler colonialism, industrialization, and the discovery of oil and plastic. Yet these photographs are also deeply ideological. The singular viewpoint enforced by the camera, coupled with the deliberate omission of Indigenous people who lived on and stewarded these lands, constructs a fiction of emptiness—territory rendered as vacant, available, and ripe for possession.

©Naomi White, We are Earthlife Preparing to Fall Away From The Parent World, 2024 Original and found photographs, archival pigment prints, archival glue, fire and ash, encaustic 26×33”

While teaching the history of photography, I returned to O’Sullivan’s images repeatedly. They are beautiful and vast, but at the same time act as symbols of the oppressive systems we are born into and asked to inherit. These photographs do not simply document land; they actively shape perception, reinforcing narratives of domination and extraction that continue to govern how landscapes are seen, used, and controlled.

In several collages, I draw on the opening lines of different chapters from Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower, using them as both titles and points of departure. Growing up in Los Angeles, Butler’s descriptions of oak trees, freeways, coyotes, and the Santa Ana winds felt uncannily familiar. I work with these elements as recurring motifs throughout the series, reflecting both the recognizability of our present world and the unsettling future we are being conditioned to accept.

©Naomi White, When I Escaped From The Neighborhood It Was Burning_18x24_Naomi-White

Engaging historical theories of landscape and power, this project contends with the inevitability—and necessity—of change. As W. J. T. Mitchell argues, landscape is not merely something to be viewed, but a process: shaped by choices, labor, and ideology, much like art itself. By disrupting nineteenth-century survey photographs of the West—reintroducing time, people, and culture into the frame—these collages seek to fracture inherited narratives and gesture toward resilience, repair, and possibility.

©Naomi White, All That You Touch You Change, All That You Change, Changes You, 2024 Original and found photographs, archival pigment prints, archival glue, fire and ash, encaustic 18×24”

Another metaphor I worked with in this series is seen in the harmonies of colors standing out from the black and white. Thirty million years ago, early humans began to evolve the ability to perceive color, beginning as just a slight hint of color in their periphery. Working hard to see the periphery colors more clearly, our vision expanded over time, allowing us to perceive a full spectrum with ease. In a similar way, our capacity to imagine worlds beyond corporate greed, authoritarian overreach, and human suffering is still evolving. Just as perception can be trained and refined, we can also work to envision—and work toward—a more just and equitable future coming into view.

Naomi White, Los Angeles, September 2024

©Naomi White, Time Enters The Landscape, 2024 Original and found photographs, archival pigment prints, archival glue, fire and ash 44×61”

©Naomi White, The Map Of Our Illusions, 2024 Original and found photographs, archival pigment prints, archival glue, fire and ash 44×68”

Naomi White is an abolitionist feminist, artist, and educator, working on ideas at the intersection of political ecology and photography. Throughout her work White addresses an array of complex contemporary issues, questioning dominant ethics and narratives throughout history, and asking how we can shift our focus away from the current model of domination to one of equity and collective voice, for the sake of all people, animals and the planet.

Her mixed-media practice incorporates original and found photographs, encaustic wax, archival glue, fire and ash. White is the winner of the 2024 Associate’s Award at Brand 52 and was a finalist for the 2023 Hopper Prize. White has exhibited and spoken about her work throughout North America and Europe, including art fairs Tryst, Scope, Spectrum, Kolajfest, and Photo LA.

Teaching is an essential part of White’s practice. She teaches classes exploring Lighting for Personal Projects, The Art of Collage, The Archive, Technology and Instagram; Ecology, Ethics & Activism and Photographic Theory. White co-curates thesis exhibitions with her students at NYFA (New York Film Academy, Los Angeles) where she is currently Associate Professor of Photography.

Instagram: @naomiwhiteart