By Sara Rabinowitz, AIRIE fellow Chasing the Sun, 2.11.15, 2.12.15, 2.13.15

February 1^st at 7:05 a.m. I stood facing east, taking a picture of the sunrise through the entrance gates to Everglades National Park. This was the first time I chased the sun during my residency with the AIRIE program. My days were tethered to capturing the “scientific” sunrise and sunset from the same geographic point.  The specific location changed every day, as I ventured further in and out since been digitally woven together. This ritual notation is one way in which data I collected at the park is shaping new work I am making.

Anhinga Skin, In Progress

As an AIRIE fellow, I had the opportunity to have my research supported through meetings with scientists, a slog into a cypress dome, a water excursion with a hydrology technician, and access to the Everglades National Park Museum and Archive. The material I gathered over the course of my two weeks is developing into three distinct series, the first of which is Chasing the Sun.

The AIRIE team slogging in February*

The second is focused on the permeability of the park; it uses patterns found on the skins of critters, including ourselves, that move in and out of the park and reshape the ecosystems. The enduring desire to collect objects from a landscape as a trigger to memory of place will ground the third series of work and is inspired by a book, humbly stamped “landscape” that lives in the Museum. This book contains pressed algae postcards made by prisoners at Fort Jefferson as a cottage industry.

Tegu Skin, In Progress

On February 13^th at 6:13 p.m. I stood facing west and took my final photograph of the sun at Everglades National Park. The contrast of looking east, out of the park, at the beginning of the residency and looking west, into the park, at the close of the residency was profound. I will forever, in some ways, be looking deeper into the park no matter where I am standing because this experience has given me a new lens through which I view my daily.

*Select AIRIE fellows and scientists currently have work on view in AnthropoScene, Art in a Manufactured Era, at the CAS Gallery through March 24^th. Details at anthroposcene.weebly.com and http://www.airie.org/