The Spillway | St. Charles Parish, Louisiana | 2016-present

Since 2016 I have been working within the landscape of the Bonnet Carré Spillway, visualizing this local space as emblematic of global sites of extraction and environmental fragility. Constructed in 1929 by the Army Corps of Engineers, the 7000-foot flood control structure is activated only during extreme high-water conditions, effectively creating a temporary tributary of the Mississippi River by flooding 12 square miles of adjacent public land, connecting the river to Lake Pontchartrain. This outlet slows the flow of water and prevents failure of the lower Mississippi’s levee system, thereby protecting the city of New Orleans and the petrochemical corridor at the heart of our state’s economy.  This emergency measure has been taken 15 times since 1931, with five openings since just 2016. It is an undeniable indicator of our changing climate, with its own devastating effects on the ecosystems of the lake and Gulf Coast.

Through photographs and time-based works, I consider the spillway's current state and layered history: its violent legacy as a sugar plantation, proximity to petrochemical industry, contemporary use as a site for recreation, and increased frequency of flooding due to climate change. I seek to examine the way capitalism shapes the landscape we inhabit, the histories we choose to tell amid institutional erasure, and the visual language of our Anthropogenic topography.