Cally Iden
40°25′1″ N, 75°3′34″ W, 59 x 89 inches, 2011, Archival Inkjet Print on canvas
From the Navigation With Trees series
37°3′3″ N, 27°9′4″ E, 60 x 60 inches, 2012, Archival Inkjet Print
Imia/Kardak, rocky islet, disputed between Greece and Turkey. From the Manifest Destiny series
Aritst Statement
In my work, I deal with mapping and identity in relation to the landscape. Navigation With Trees is a series of images that operate simultaneously as landscape photographs and family portraits. From aerial photography, to satellite images, to portraits from the ground, this body of work has become an investigation into the boundaries drawn and the incongruities evinced by the human occupation of the landscape. On the ground, my human subjects are dominated by the architecture of the landscape. From the air, our subjugation of the land becomes abundantly apparent, even in the subtlest landscape of them all, where a road enters the frame of the image like a sword piercing the heart of a forest.
"Manifest Destiny" is a working title for a project that documents the shifting national borders in an age where there is little land left to claim and conquer. Using the ubiquitous Google Maps™, I have appropriated hundreds of images of disputed “mini” territories and stitched them together and printed them as large format, abstracted photographs. There are 3 territories so far represented in this series, titled by their gps coordinates, which effectively anonymizes their alleged ownership. The subjects of my images are uninhabited rocky islets, who, in spite of their size, provide very real economic advantages, such as expanded fishing rights in territorial waters. In this project, I explore the mediatory role of Google and how it both manipulates and is manipulated by individuals as a tool to validate territorial claims. Google has set in place a policy to accept any name of a place claimed by a people. Hence the Sea of Japan (between Japan and Korea) is also indicated as the East Sea (Korea's claim). Territorial overlaps are represented, not as conflicts but as coexisting sovereignty.
More information available at www.callyiden.com