I am the sparrow looking up through the water column into the virtuosity of nature’s cathedral. A Sparrow on the Floor of the Cathedral immerses the viewer beneath the ocean’s surface into profound space. Similar to the United States Geological Surveys (USGS) documentary landscape photographs of the nineteenth century, these marine environments call attention to latent possibilities; be they massive, sublime and/or vulnerable to human impact. Each articulation expresses a delicate balance of volume, space and adornment.
Like the American West, these aquatic environments host natural resources which humans have been or are actively extracting. Owing to their relative anonymity and inaccessibility these frontiers have been portrayed as “romantic”, mythical and untouched wildernesses.
The mission of geological surveys included gathering information, data and photographs to encourage railroads, mining and tourism. It is in the geologic features that the history of the earth is inscribed: its age, the evolutions and extinctions of its species, its catastrophes, erosions and formations.
Like the USGS documentation, the description of each photograph included in this series contains essential data related to the experience of its creation, such as: time, date, location and specific geological formations. I share these details first to spread wonder, because knowledge and empathy transform wonder into curiosity and secondly, to foster awareness of the intricate and inextricable link between the quality of water, our most precious and finite resource and what lives within it.
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Jann Rosen-Queralt is an artist based in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, currently integrating underwater photography within her oeuvre of multi-disciplinary artwork. Her works reveal the poetic nature of water coupled with exploring social and ecological relationships. An avid scuba diver and researcher of aquatic environments, Rosen-Queralt works to integrate structures and biological processes inspired by waterscapes and that which lives within them to trigger awareness. Rooted in immersive research and innovative collaborations that expand upon connections between lived experience, science and history, her goal is sharing the phenomena of the underwater world with those who may never experience it firsthand.
In 2018, Rosen-Queralt was awarded a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship to study marine invertebrates at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and originally received an invitation in 2020 that will take place in 2023 to participate in an exploratory art and science residency in the Arctic Circle. Rosen-Queralt is emeritus Director of the Rinehart Graduate School of Sculpture at Maryland Institute College of Art.
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