Surrounding Hanlan’s Point beach is an intricate web of cruising paths safely hidden by the bushes and trees, where queers meet and desires collide. These paths may be inconspicuous to some, but are well used and loved to those in the know. Places like these have become increasingly precarious due to homophobia and mainstream crack down on public sex. The negatives are buried in the sand dunes which are integral to retaining the structure of the island and keeping tides low. Pieces of lost emulsion negate understanding and refuse the entirety of the representational image of these paths and instead create new images.

Through a lens of queer ecology, this work and process speaks to the multiple social urgencies of this site: the erosion of the beach coupled with the precarity of queer spaces. Bringing together these real and potential losses, this materialist practice employs the touch of the artist and the beach as a political gesture.

Exhibitions:

Exposure Photography Festival, Emerging Photographers Showcase, Calgary AB, February 2025.