Artwork > Public / Commissions

Collective Cartography (L to R: Middlegrounds, Wildwood Preserve)
Collective Cartography (L to R: Middlegrounds, Wildwood Preserve)
Laminated backlit prints, lightboxes
48 x 96 inches each
2022

Collective Cartography is a collaborative reflection of natural spaces throughout Lucas County, between the local community and artist Cable Griffith. Contributors were invited to submit their own photographs of Middlegrounds, Swan Creek, Oak Openings, Manhattan Marsh, Wildwood, and Howard Marsh Metroparks, documenting their personal explorations through these spaces. Griffith gathered over 700 photographs from participants and constructed a digital photo collage of each of the six parks, taking various elements from separate submitted photos. Each of the 6 compositions is based on a selection of between 20 - 30 photos, borrowing a tree from one, a flower from another, a cloud here, and a reflection there. These compositions are then pixelated– blending, averaging and uniting the separate details into a unified mosaic that feels anonymous, yet uniquely specific to the original location. Griffith then ‘fills in the blanks’ with a reductive and repetitive system of glyphs, suggesting a place somewhere between actual, virtual, and imagined.