The ARC explores ritual and place– questions what it means to belong to a land.
It was born out of time spent with my family near our historic cabin, Ark Lodge, set deep in the woods of South Carolina, and continued over a period of six years, 2012-2018. The cabin was built over 70 years ago by our ancestors and rests between two black rivers in a secluded landscape that has managed to escape modernization for centuries.
Here—time is elastic, slow moving’.
The endurance of my project was fueled by polaroid’s ability to evoke chance encounters with imperfection and describe a vulnerability relatable to both the human condition and the transformation of memory over time. It was initially inspired by a mysterious, fragmented collection of vintage family photographs left at Ark Lodge by our ancestors over several generations. The stories behind these photographs remain untold and led me to we weave our present into our past to create our own mythology. —Jen Ervin