Antishadows 2019

I would like to acknowledge that the images presented in this publication were made within the walls of the Pueblo Bonito of Chaco Canyon, on the indigenous and ancestral lands of Navajo, Hopi and Puebloan peoples. I would like to thank Daniel Tso, Samuel Sage, Kendra Pinto and Eileen Shendo from the Greater Chaco Coalition for sharing their inspiring work, stories and for, inviting us to be apart of

the fight against oil and gas development. Sharing how Fracking in the Chaco region threatens each and every living being that resides near the wells. And how the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Oil and Gas companies have historically abused their power in order to drill extensively in the area, displacing and dividing communities in the process. They are a constant threat to the preservation and livelihood of these lands.

The photographs in this publication show my interaction through the rooms and gullies of the Pueblo Bonito, the largest structure in Chaco Canyon National Historical Park. It is a native land that

is now managed by the federal agency
of the National Park Service, with the surrounding lands managed by the BLM. The is a site that is controlled, regulated and advertised, it is a tourist attraction and a stark comparison to the nearby fracking wells, which are built to blend in with the landscape, to go unseen whilst they destroy land, waste water and contaminate the air, all in the name of profit. There is a deep unsavory irony to the federal regulations that are bestowed unto protecting the ruins of Chaco Canyon, whilst other federal departments systematically and violently divide up the surrounding native lands to make way for fracking wells.

It is vital to distinguish between the organisations that may manage and regulate sites like Chaco Canyon, and the communities that these lands rightly belong to and to be aware of federal hypocrisies toward the treatment of indigenous lands. But also how by visiting these sites and assuming the roll of tourist with a camera
in my case, we are complicit in the colonial narrative of native lands. It is a narrative that needs to be revised.

‘Antishadows’ depicts shapes of light that were projected on the dusty floors and ancient brick of the dwellings in Pueblo Bonito at Chaco Canyon National Historical Park. These pockets of light take their shape due to the particular window or doorway

and the angle of which the sun is beaming through. Built in accordance to the solar and lunar cycles, the structure has this infinity with light and its source. These avenues of light that protrude into the darkest places of Chaco canyon carry the lingering presence of age and the certainty that these shapes have been daily visitors since the building’s completion. The light has been molded and manipulated and it becomes a sculptural from in the photographic process. These illuminated shapes describe the negative spaces that light is traveling through. And has been traveling through for thousands of years at Chaco Canyon through human intervention.

The Greater Chaco Coalition can be found at www.frackoffchaco.org