As I sit here reading, looking, and writing about fires that I haven’t experienced, about places I don't live in, whilst also remaining silent or less knowledgeable about environmental issues closer to my home; am I not participating in the “privileged distanced voyeurism” that I argue is the problem with dominant fire imagery? Am I just adding to the noise? Hasn’t this already been said before? Am I doing enough? These are some of the doubts and apprehensions I had whilst completing my research and connecting with the community in Fort McMurray. “In one short life, where does responsibility lie?” I ask myself as Robin Wall Kimmerer does in Braiding Sweetgrass (2013).
Pyrogram 08 by Alan McFetridge - CEP
Writing is hard, but this difficulty is good. It makes me slow down and not only think, but feel. Latching on and following threads that can never be completely separated and untangled but help open my mind to appreciate the messy connections that hold things in place. There is so much I could have said about fire and photography, and it is easy to become overwhelmed in this mesh that I become so entangled and don’t say anything at all. So much of the tension in writing is deciding what I want to include in the argument, or story, I am trying to tell. I have to bring these threads together and carry them in my writing (1). I cannot carry fire through the land, as I am not a Keeper of the Fire or have the knowledge and connection for this sacred act. But I can carry fire in my writing and the images that I talk about and bring fire to your mind and imagination.
Kimmerer describes writing as an act of reciprocity with the world and I take confidence in this. That sometimes I may feel a dissonance: there are fires blazing! The biggest crisis of our time! And all I am doing is writing about it! But through writing I can undergo a transformation that creates a moment of clarity in this messy life that I can share with others. I can fall into a rabbit hole, soak up information, poetics, questions, and musings (the taking), and then form my own considerations (the giving). I could go back and forth for days with multiple drafts trying to give this some kind of form. Eventually something sticks, and I mould it, weaving the sentences together into a basket that gathers the seeds of ideas and fruits of wisdom that I have learnt.
Photography too can be about giving attention: an art of noticing: recognising and acknowledging through looking, and imagining, that we have something to see, something to learn. Yet when it comes to fire we cultivate an apocalyptic oblivion that keeps us from truly seeing fire and respecting its power to both create and destroy.
“Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy.” (Braiding Sweetgrass, 212)
How do we look at fire and respect the death and mourning, but also recognise animation and beauty? We can choose joy over despair and put our energy into fire’s creative force. This is what I challenge you to bring in the essay and research project I have produced over the past year or so. There are people who have answers and deep knowledge about fire and land management in different ecosystems. We must listen and learn and notice our own encounters with fire.
Warm wishes,
Emma
References:
(1) Guin, U.K.L., The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, 1986,https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ursula-k-le-guin-the-carrier-bag-theory-of-fiction