Andreas Rutkauskas
in Chandler

Since 2016 Andreas Rutkauskas has resided in one of the most fire-prone landscapes in Canada, and has investigated wildfire as a disturbance phenomenon since 2017 through works of photography, video and audio. A relatively optimistic outlook on fire ecology was embedded in his earlier imagery. He leaned into how the land can rebound and regenerate following fires of low or moderate intensity. However, for every forest that benefits from low-intensity fire, a larger swath of land has been severely transformed by a fire of high magnitude. This territory often enters into a cycle of slope destabilization, erosion and flooding, slowing the process of regrowth. These ideas led him to create a series titled Silent Witnesses, which relied on artificial lighting to focus the viewer’s attention on certain pictorial elements.

Rutkauskas’s latest series, Artifacts of Disturbance, was created during a month-long artist residency in the Similkameen Valley of British Columbia. In this first foray into studio photography he collected specimens of ecological and geological matter that were subjected to fire events. Isolating these specimens in a studio context allows him to reflect on how the fire moved across these surfaces, foregrounding fragility yet hinting at concepts of resiliency. Relying on foil and mirrored surfaces disrupts a conventional studio backdrop, and allows him to incorporate a virtual horizon line, thereby offering a connection back to the genre of landscape photography. The materials were collected at sites including the 2023 Crater Creek and 2022 Keremeos Creek wildfires, located within a brief drive of the Similkameen Artist Residency. All the materials were returned to their respective sites after being photographed, in recognition of their role within lands that support human and more-than-human communities.