Entasis (xylem)

2016

This photographic work is based on scanned imagesof the gigantic trees located on Sapelo Island, off the coast of Georgia. The island is unique for both its ecological diversity and its layered histories as a former and current home to Native populations, white plantation-owning families, and a prominent Gullah-Geechee community (descendants of enslaved West African and West Indian people).

Michael Joo preserves the Lowcountry landscape through a technique that recalls early photographic processes such as the daguerreotype, the silvery surface resulting in an image that comes in and out of view. As rising sea levels threaten the natural environment of the coastline and contribute to the displacement of Gullah-Geechee residents, Joo’s work poignantly captures the fragility and resilience of human life.