20°54'48.62"N - 156°23'25.89"W, 24x24 C-Print, 2007 | Untitled (Pilani Highway), 24x24" C-Print, 2009 | 20°56'24.22"N - 156°18'41.48"W, 24X24" C-Print, 2007 | Untitled (Kula Highway), 24X24" C-Print, 2009 | 20°54'51.12"N - 156°23'18.46"W, 24x24 C-Print, 2007 | 20°54'51.12"N - 156°23'18.46"W, 24x24 C-Print, 2009 | Untitled (Hana Highway), 24X24" C-Print, 2007 | 20°53'30.00"N - 156°29'51.32"W, 24x24 C-Print, 2009 | 20°41'52.52"N - 156°22'19.01"W, 24x24 C-Print, 2009 | 20°54'52.92"N - 156°23'14.71"W, 24x24 C-Print, 2009 | 20°54'52.92"N - 156°23'14.71"W, 24x24 C-Print, 2007 | 20°50'19.82"N - 156°27'44.03"W, 24x24 C-Print, 2009 | Untitled (Hana Highway II), 24X24" C-Print, 2007 | 20°50'19.82"N - 156°27'44.03"W, 24x24 C-Print, 2009 | 20°54'51.13"N - 156°23'18.48"W, 24x24 C-Print, 2009 |
The Abandoned Island I see a landscape transforming, and upon each visit a familiar yet distant memory is before me. In the calmness of the Island of Maui and throughout the land are reminiscence of humans in an eternal struggle to co-exist. The Abandoned Island project first started in 2005 when I first visited the island and came across a field covered in cars. It looked as if they had fallen from the sky, placed randomly amongst the rich vegiation, and completely out-of-place. With each visit, exactly two years apart, I'd document and redocument specific locations, taking note of the progress of nature as well as the progress of the community. Maui county uses a system of identifying each abandoned vehicle by labelling them with orange stickers. Two weeks later, if the cars hadn't been moved they are to be towed to a central holding lot, where they'll wait even longer. During this time if the vehicle's owners are identified they'd be notified: where their vehicle is located, charged for the towing and storage, and the vehicle would be returned to them, or sold for scrap. Almost half of the cars will remain unclaimed, "abandoned", and will either be sold through police auction or be processed as strap metal. The county of Maui has taken steps to rendering these vehicles in an environmental sound matter (in 2005 a strap metal plant had been shut-down due to not meeting the county's standards, which in turn the county had seen an influx of abandoned vehicles). Currently toxic fluids contained (and later processed by another plant) before compressing the vehicles into rectangular blocks. Later these blocks are shipped to China for further rendering, shipment happens every two weeks. Hovering in the balance between the world of man, and the realm of the natural, I can't help but let my mind wonder off. I close my eyes and what is before me isn't a ruin, nor something forgotten, it is a faint idea of the paradise lost.
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