After Archive: An Uncertain Truth

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Arts collaboration project with University of California, Santa Cruz Special Collections

The environmental impact of logging within the Santa Cruz Mountains, however dramatic it was when the region was first logged, has not had as lasting an impact on the environment as I had originally expected. This was due largely to the unusual logging practices of the time of leaving almost all of the original old growth forest’s stumps in-tact, allowing for new shoots to immediately grow out from the land once the easily attainable and most valuable redwood was cut down and shipped out of the mountains.

The usual strategy when logging a moderately mountainous forest is to clear-cut the land (including the stumps) for grazing land. This fact, combined with the lack of detailed information regarding the early logging of the region left me quite baffled. The only lasting detrimental environmental impact that could be confirmed with any confidence was the pollution of the local streams with rust and heavy metals, something which is rather commonplace in regions where the lumber industry has taken place.

As a direct result of this extensive research I found that the best way forward in addressing these unusual circumstances was to create something abstract that reflected upon the lack of detailed information on why the land was logged in this way or how the new generation of redwood forests was able to bounce back as quickly as it did despite having been continuously logged since the 1840s. After many weeks of combing through the visual archives of the UCSC Special Collections, I have curated a small collection of snapshots that call into question what we truly understand about the past, hinting at what’s missing from the archive.