DETROIT RIVER, 2024-2025
35 cyanotypes on Xray film, red wine, bleach
58 x 41 inches

Detroit River Series consists of 35 cyanotypes made on x-ray film, a repurposed medical substrate that already carries associations with exposure, diagnosis, and the body. Each sheet was coated in cyanotype solution and submerged directly in the Detroit River, letting the river's pollutants imprint onto the surface. Afterward, the films were bathed in red wine and then bleach, materials chosen for what they carry culturally and symbolically. The wine brings blood, sacrifice, and ritual. The bleach signals cleanliness, purity, and control, while being toxic. The resulting images hold all of that history visually, abstract records of a river that has been used, altered, and used again.