Liminal Shadows: Infrared in Victorian Cemeteries

This ongoing project began with a visit to Oakland Cemetery in my home town of Atlanta.

I have a lifelong interest in what are considered liminal or "spiritual" experiences - the goosebumps in a dark place, collective effervescence at a concert, lucid dreams of people in our lives (and even of those long gone). For me, infrared has the ability to pierce that veil, not only revealing light we cannot see, but uncovering the emotional lives of the spaces around us. Trees don't just lean, but rest in ways that are melancholy and tired. Shady sidewalks tease secrets about the people who roamed them. Architecture speaks boldly and more articulately about its place in time and space. 

I have found no environment more full of infrared liminal splendor than Victorian cemeteries. Inspired by Renaissance paintings of classical Pelopennese landscapes and conceived in Victorian England, the Victorian cemetery is not just a collection of grave sites, but a curated public space for rest, contemplation, and quiet solace among nature. This ongoing project features the liminal qualities of those spaces and how the veil so eloquently converses with the memories of the living and the spirits of the departed.