Dwellings

In 2011, I moved to the edge of the Earth. That isn’t far from the truth for an Alabama native raised on the American dream now living on the remote Arctic coast of Alaska. Of course to those who belong to this land, it is the center. Where I find isolation and vulnerability, the Inupiat traditionally find protection and sustenance. It is a distinction that weighs on my mind as I struggle emotionally with my surroundings. I think this is what first attracted me to photographing the dwellings in my community. They don’t belong. Houses stand out conspicuously against the landscape, vestiges of an outside culture, my culture, one that has fatefully assumed dominance. Each displays a varying state of decay, an equalizing consequence of the extreme climate. Abandoned structures are common and left to deteriorate next to their inhabited neighbors. The value of a structure is difficult to ascertain from the outside. What lies within? A healthy household that is warm and inviting? Or one that is cold and dark, succumbing to deterioration within as well as without. Hope or despair? These photographs represent a personal exploration of my feelings of isolation and culture displacement in this environment as I search for a new balance and sense of belonging in the Arctic.