Guest Essay
On any given day, Hillary Irene Johnson will be posted up in a paper making studio, turning a fibrous pulpy mess of parts of an abaca or mulberry tree into off-white sheets as thin and translucent as onion skins. She will use this paper as a substrate for a richly toned photograph of a winter tree or a winding root of a plant. This photograph might simply hang on the wall with pins, or it might make its way into a handmade book, or be woven together with other sheets of paper into a large-scale installation. To Johnson, the possibilities are endless. Her working process can be likened to that of a detective, shaman, and scientist all at once, intertwining observation, intuition, and experimentation. No matter the format, her art practice, and larger philosophical approach to life, is rooted in an interest in conveying intricate connections throughout nature.
This dedication is evident in the title of her thesis exhibition: Unity: Roots, Seaweed, Dinosaur Feathers, Snow in the Woods, Axons, Dendrites, and Human Beings, which suggests just a fraction of her interests. To make the image titled Dinosaur Feather, she visited the archives of Chicago’s Field Museum to closely examine and photograph their collection of Sandhill Cranes. This crane species stands as the oldest living bird species on Earth, direct descendants of dinosaurs. In presenting one of its feathers in an image, Johnson asks us to grasp our relation to the whole history of the earth. She prompts us to recognize that life has thrived on this planet for billions of years, a truth our bodies inherently understand beyond our intellectual capacities. The water we drink today is the same water that sustained dinosaurs, flowing through countless forms and cycles while retaining its fundamental molecular composition.
Water is a recurring motif in Johnson’s work. In an ongoing project titled The Waters We Swim In, she immerses people in bodies of water across North America, Canada, and Europe, her camera capturing their faces as they emerge or float. This effort extends beyond the act of simply making photographs, as she also encourages her participants to focus on self-acceptance and emotional release as they plunge. She leads them to share in a profound understanding of water not merely as a resource, but as an integral part of life's sacred web, embodying intelligence essential to healing and balancing the body.
Johnson has an insatiable creative spirit, and she is continually absorbing new inspirations. In spending even a brief time in her world, we can share her view of all species, great and small, not as disparate forms but existing like many branches on the same tree.
-Kristin Taylor, Curator of Academic Programs and Collections at the Museum of Contemporary Photography
Unity: Roots, Seaweed, Dinosaur Feathers, Snow in the Woods, Axons, Dendrites, and Human Beings
I'm interested in the unity of experience, perception, and expression. To see the world in terms of what is inside or outside of myself, feels like an inaccurate binary, a misunderstanding. Feelings that arise in the presence of beauty are the result of energetic resonance and alignment, a form of communication between self and others including those to whom the term, sentience, may not typically be attached.
It’s no accident that the forms and function of the human nervous system and those of other organisms including those of the plant world, are visually and functionally similar. The primary distinction between them is mainly a matter of processing speed. Working in the landscape and even in my own garden, I feel what John O’Donohue wrote to be true, “...the Beautiful offers us an invitation to order, coherence and unity. When these needs are met, the soul feels at home in the world.”
I began photographing in the landscape in 2017. Initially, working on Lake Superior, later in Nova Scotia, Baraboo, Wisconsin and other places. Initially, overwhelmed by the beauty and fragility I encountered, I spent a lot of time walking, getting to know the land and myself, reconnecting with the knowing that everything was alive and in communication. My experiences in the land, my relationships with each place, plant and person, are indelibly stamped in memory. It is all of that to which these pieces speak and I hope, carry their meaning forward to you.