About this project

My name is Lydia Anne McCarthy and I am an artist living and working in Umeå, a small city on the northern coast of Sweden.  I have recently received a residency at the Banff Centre for the month of March and need your help funding it!  

I've been traveling with researchers to Tjeggelvas, a remote reserve above the Arctic Circle, that was once inhabited by the Sami, the indigenous, reindeer-herding people of northern Scandinavia.  This reserve is unlike any other old-growth forest in Sweden, maybe all of northern Europe, as it has never been logged.  Huge, Scotts pine trees lay strewn on the ground like bodies and an eerie hush hovers over the land.  Traces of the Sami can be found everywhere, if one knows how to look.  From out of landscape emerge old storage platforms, hearths, the remnants of huts, and most strikingly, bark-peeled trees.  The peelings are like wounds, many peeled hundreds of years ago but still living, the new bark curling over and into the scar.  This is a special, sacred place.

The Project

Both in Tjegglevas and in other, more accessible sites I have been creating a world that seemingly exists simultaneously with my own, where spirits from the past converge with the present.  Through a combination of straight photographs and multiple exposures, I draw on the history of spirit photography to reveal my perception of this place.  In addition to the images, I envision the final body of work to include a large sculpture, which I am presently working on, as well as a book which I will begin in April.   

Metamorphosis 2011 

But first I need to put the photographs to rest!  I want to make big, beautiful prints of this work, but in order to do that I need some help.  At Banff I can use their 60" wide, inkjet printer to make final exhibition prints, as well as smaller editions.  I am trying to raise money to cover the cost of: high-resolution scans, travel to and from the residency, my stay there, paper and access to the digital lab. 

Beyond getting to make prints of this work, I'll get to spend a month in the GORGEOUS Canadian Rockies AND meet other artists from around the world.  I can't pass this up!  And if you support this project, check out what you will get in return!  Maybe your very own bark-peeled tree?  

Choose your reward from the two pictures below:  

Bark-peeled Tree (12) 2011

OR

Vortex 2011