Placelessness of Echoes (and kinship of shadows) — Body/Branches

Description

In the series Placelessness of Echoes (and kinship of shadows), Keisha Scarville’s abstract photographs depict a shapeshifter as she transforms through the nocturnal American landscape. Using primarily natural light sources, Scarville creates a liminal space in her work, drawing inspiration from the late Guyanese author, Wilson Harris, and his description of “possessed, living landscapes.” The shapeshifter navigates the darkness, connecting nature and the body in visual ambiguity and drawing connections to place, power, belonging, and self-formation. “Darkness is no longer inert but an active space of perception in which I construct a new topographic understanding of the landscape. This understanding blurs the specificity between the body and the terrain, while actively decentering the black female body as prey.”