Discordant Vernacular

Discordant Vernacular employs hybrid forms of photography, sculpture and installation juxtaposing elements of manmade construction, nature, and the suggestion of human interaction to develop a non-linear narrative structure within each image, and the exhibition as a whole. The varying representations coalesce under a contextual framework exploring the dichotomous relationship that exists between environments constructed by humans, and the nature they support.

Discordant, suggests being disagreeing, incongruous, harsh, or jarring because of a lack of harmony, while Vernacular as it relates to architecture, implies a concern with domestic and functional rather than public or monumental buildings. Within the contemporary urban environment, the inclusion and abstraction of natural form is commonplace, however, it is predicated upon a historically pejorative relationship between humanity and nature. The later is controlled by the former, relegated to the realm of wilderness, or encased within urbanity, its anti-habitat, in monumental greenhouses, flower gardens, landscaped parks and yards, and other ‘green’ areas. It is in these areas where humanity seems to suggest a greater, even essential ephemeral connection to the natural world exists, despite a thorough removal of ourselves from it. As the modern definition of the word suggests, nature “is the phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to humans or human creation.”

In the urban environment nearly devoid of wild nature, humans have developed systems within which the forms of nature are transplanted and fostered to provide a greater aesthetic and to some extents, empathic connection. The forms of nature we seek to connect with are anthropomorphized and begin to take on qualities more like their human keepers. Their interaction results in an osmosis like transfer of subjective qualities otherwise confined to the other. Nature takes on a necessary structure and unlikely dependence, while humans engage in an ephemeral freeness and connection to the greater outside world.

Discordant Vernacular, through the visual juxtaposition of constructed and natural forms, suggests both a pervasive an underlying communion existing between human and nature, as well as pointing toward a heavily veiled and fundamental flaw relative to the self constructed command humanity holds over the realm of nature. Given the long tradition of incorporating the forms of nature as emotive aesthetic compliments to our constructions, and in the face of modern fears about global biosphere collapse, several important questions must be asked as to how the human and nature dichotomy has formed, the implications of its social acceptance, and whether this seemingly fundamental duality need even exist?