My work ranges from ephemeral public installations/interventions to research-based studies of landscape, architecture and/or public space. I make large scale color photographs that reflect human intervention, whether historical, political, ideological, or physical. My interests lie within the discernable differences regarding public vs. private land ownership, goal-driven uses of land and public space, and the visible effects of these factors. I am drawn to making photographs that contain elements of the past and indications of the future, both of which can be at odds with what I and the viewer experience as the present within each image. I am interested in the history and context of depictions of landscape and nature, whether pastoral or sublime, and aim to question what such depictions can become—given the reality of melting ice, rising seas, growing intensity of storms and floods, all caused by the warming of our planet.

The primary location chosen for this project is Greenland, which contains a multitude of examples of complications in addressing climate change. There is the overpowering presence of the shrinking of the ancient ice cap, glaciers melting fresh water into the oceans, as well as the visibility and history of colonialism and indigenous experience of climate change. There is also a desire to create a tourist destination that, paradoxically, will advance progression of the ice melt, yet will provide much needed economic opportunities and advancement of infrastructure. In addition, there is worldwide government and corporate interest into mining Greenland’s rich trove of resources and minerals, which will become more accessible the faster its ice sheet disappears.

In the summers of 2016 and 2022, I was awarded two small research grants to photograph in Greenland. I photographed in the southeast, which contains the only farmland and forest on the island, is the site of abandoned Viking settlements and many proposed (controversially so) mining areas. I went twice to the west coast, where Greenland’s major towns have become startlingly different from 2016 to 2022. Clearly visible is the concerted effort to maximize the economic advantages brought forth by the physical reality of the ice melting and the more abstract idea of it that tourists pay a lot of money to see, conceivably before it all vanishes. There is a vast amount of new construction and infrastructure. Three major airports in Greenland are being enlarged in anticipation of, for the first time, international passenger and freight aircraft. Soon there will be direct flights to and from Greenland from other countries, particularly the US. (There are not currently commercial routes without going first through Copenhagen or Iceland.) A marked increase in industry and tourism is being prepared for and there is evidence of this anywhere one cares to look.

The title of this project refers to a US Cold War missile detection system of radar stations over Greenland and Arctic regions of North America, put in place to protect American cities from nuclear attack. Thule Air Base in the far north is now the US Air Force Space Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command. Today the base is used for monitoring space for defense purposes. Specifically, it is home to the 21^st Space Wing’s network of sensors that provides early missile warning, space surveillance and control.[1]

The term Distant Early Warning Line, besides referring directly to the US military presence, is evocative of the fact that Greenland is perhaps the most important region in the world right now in terms of teaching us about climate change, the cost of exploitation of the land itself, and whether anyone is really watching or listening.