The Academy

The images in this body of work were taken during the destruction of the Academy of Science in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. With this project I began to explore my interest in, not only the affect of the cultural and societal landscape on its inhabitants, but also their influence on it. I hoped to engage this phenomenon by looking at how culture has imprinted itself in the science of history and how that history is perceived. Traditionally, museums are recognized as a place for people to learn about history and science in an objective light. Science and history, however, are not entirely objective; they are subject to the flaws and biases of the culture that creates them. As nature begins to reclaim the formally majestic halls and dioramas of San Francisco’s Academy of Science a new understanding of the history the museum portrays begins to be revealed, its exposed state serving to uncover the artifice and subjectivity inherent in the museums creation.

Ryan J. Kellman