The River Home continues to explore the flexible, idea of home, through individuals’ connections to the land. By looking at people through rivers and at rivers through people, the project, which began with video interviews of Humboldt County residents speaking of their relationship with The Eel River and continued with a photographic and non-fiction narrative based gallery installation, has now moved into its third phase, a sound based project which consists of ninety-six one-minute songs, each on a different water-related topic, one song for every year since the California Aqueduct was built, contributing to the growth of Los Angeles into a world metropolis.

The River Home

Talk to Me

SOMETIMES WRITING THINGS DOWN HELPS YOU REMEMBER, BUT SOMETIMES IT MAKES YOU FORGET. It’s like when you look like an adult but you remember stuff that you remembered when you were a kid. BUT REALLY, IT’S JUST THE SAME MEMORY. Writing it down won’t make it true, it just helps to forget.

\”Tsunami Watch\”

\”Untitled\”

By creating fictional space and narrative in my work, the imagery presented suggests the false   nature of media image production.  I am interested in the relationship between how an image is created, how that image can influence a viewer, and the significant amount of misunderstanding that can happen between those stages.

What intrigues me is the lingering presence of human form found in “empty” spaces. Through the pockets of weary daylight seeping into busy streets and local shops, objects and artifacts begin to illuminate a home outside of home. Forging for security and a place of belonging, we alter our spaces in order to adapt to our surroundings. How instinctive we are to weave intimate mementos into our spaces, making us feel at ease– anything reminding us of somewhere we belong.

This work represents the changes not only in my process, but in my way of thinking about photography. The idea behind this book came from looking for something at my parents’ house and coming across a bag full of keys sitting in a drawer. I wanted to create a record of them and decided that I wanted to scan the objects. I kept the existing groupings of the objects and used the keys, key chains, and key rings simultaneously in each composition. I decided that I did not want them to resemble a catalogue so I chose random placement of the objects. For the final piece, I knew that the images needed to be a collection and a book was the best way for me to achieve that.

Luchadores use masks to cover their faces and to protect their identity as well as to evoke their Aztec ancestors. Aztecs wore masks for a variety of religious and cultural ceremonies, believing that by wearing them they would take on another persona to gain power. As essential as the marks are to the story of lucha libre, my work goes beyond the use of a colorful mask: I am interested in the individual underneath. The luchador transforms from a simple man to the folk hero that we see in the ring. In addition from this conversion, they have the difficult task to be athletes as well as entertainers, an often grueling experience.   The matches are escapism for all those who are involved: for the wrestlers who transition from their day jobs into their weekend starring roles; for the adult fans who go to sit back and release the stress from the workweek; and for the children who dream of their future, either in the audience or in the ring. Yet amidst all these fascinating layers, I wanted to focus on the specific period of the transformation between a common man into a luchador. Most photos of lucha libre are of luchadores in action shots, but my main interest is in that brief instant when they convert into colorful masks and skin-tight outfits, as they get ready to become the luchadores that the audience is waiting to see. I am inspired by my new found knowledge that they give more than what they take: they enter the ring not to get rich, but because they love to.

Houses and Homes II from Carina Downing on Vimeo.

This work compares the feelings and experiences people have with the river in two separate communities: Sespe River (Santa Clara Valley) and the Los Angeles River (Los Angeles County).

Single channel videos are from the video series, Tabatha, 2009

“This is an experimental series studying of the ambiguity of emotion, and the semiotics of facial gesture.”

2009, 24″x36″ silver-gelatin prints