Guided by my interest in place, belonging, and home, Material Remains explores the layered histories of Mitchell Island and Steveston through experimental film photography. Using double exposures, I bring together images of plant life—both native and invasive—with remnants of early industry and contemporary sites of heavy industry and waste processing, highlighting ecologies that persist amid ongoing human intervention.

Mitchell Island, once a tidal marsh filled with cattails, sedges, and salt grass, was converted to agricultural land after colonization and is now dominated by industries such as auto-wrecking and cement production.

One of the earliest settlements in the Lower Mainland, Steveston sits on the site of a former Musqueam fishing village, where Indigenous fishing practices were replaced by increasingly industrialized approaches that contributed to overfishing, pollution, and the loss of wetlands.

My approach reflects an openness to curiosity and chance shaped by site-specificity. During a walk around Mitchell Island last year, I shot the reverse side of a roll of film, a technique known as redscale that gives the resulting photographs a deep red tint. Months later, during my residency at Branscombe House, I re-exposed the front of the same roll while exploring Steveston and the south arm of the Fraser River.

The resulting pairings—industrial landscapes layered with wetlands and plant life—reveal stark contrasts in how these neighbouring sites have evolved and how they are remembered. Through this process of layering time and place, I invite viewers to slow down and consider what images might connect across time, and what meanings can emerge from these unexpected encounters.