Untitled, from Continental Drift: Iceland/California by Marion Belanger
Buckminster Fuller, the architect, inventor and futurist, frequently coined his own words. He referred to our planet as "Spaceship Earth" and he invented new terms for upstairs and downstairs:
The words "down" and "up", according to Fuller, are awkward in that they refer to a planar concept of direction inconsistent with human experience. The words "in" and "out" should be used instead, he argued, because they better describe an object's relation to a gravitational center, the Earth. "I suggest to audiences that they say, "I'm going 'outstairs' and 'instairs.'" At first that sounds strange to them; They all laugh about it. But if they try saying in and out for a few days in fun, they find themselves beginning to realize that they are indeed going inward and outward in respect to the center of Earth, which is our Spaceship Earth. And for the first time they begin to feel real "reality."
While his terminology may sound reminiscent of a certain theme park attraction, I believe that in rethinking his vocabulary Bucky was onto something: a more authentic connection with the place we call home.
It was the appearance of a Geodesic-like dome, but also the idea of understanding the world through redefinition, that brought Bucky to mind when I saw the work of contender (and previous HHS! Honorable Mention) Marion Belanger. For Marion's series Continental Drift she traveled along fault lines in the earth photographing the locations above, then brought together photographs of Iceland and California, pairing their slowly shifting landscapes. At some point we all learned about fault lines from a textbook, but they tell us nothing about what these most active places actually feel like.
The images of Iceland are sweeping and dramatic. Marion writes:
In Iceland, the North American Plate is moving westward, creating new crust as magma pushes up from the mantle. Geologically, this place marks a divergent boundary, characterized by splitting earth, steaming hot water and a young lava landscape almost devoid of trees. The land is unstable and raw.
Rift #26 (Heimaey Houses), 2007, from Continental Drift: Iceland/California by Marion Belanger
Fault #1 (Displaced Fence), 2008, from Continental Drift: Iceland/California by Marion Belanger
The California landscape, though still on a fault-line, is dramatically different:
In California, the Pacific plate is sliding north relative to the North American plate, which means that eventually, in many millions of years, Los Angeles will be where San Francisco is now. While this transformative plate boundary is characterized by earthquake activity, it lacks the spectacular drama of a divergent boundary such as what is found in Iceland...The monotone housing developments built on top of the fault seem to deny the existence of the unstable earth below the surface.
What's so exciting about the project (aside from the beauty of the photos themselves) is the spirit of exploration and learning things for yourself which the work embodies. Marion's images reveal the lesser-seen facets of this scientific story, and convey things I once learned in school in a richer way than any textbook could dream of. Looking at these photos, I begin to feel reality.
You can view more work on Marion's website.