Terra Nullis

The Terra Nullis photographic series chronicles mid-American landscapes, caught just before or just after transient storms lingering over the Great Plains. Captured at this dynamic transition, the relationship of the land and sky, both in color and texture, emphasizes the vastness of the horizon. The series looks at the landscapes between cities...the non-urban connective tissues continually embroidered by cloud and light. These landscapes are in-between the built and the natural, somehow not belonging to either. seemingly flat and dull, the environ becomes volumetric and excitable...perhaps even agitated, as storm clouds and weather patterns mix overhead, often resulting from downsloping winds off the Rocky Mountains. This series is taken not with specific or pre-planned timing, but rather as coincident as I traveled throughout mid-America, exemplifying the spontaneity of the environment itself.

Terra Nullis means "No Mans Land" in Latin and was used by European settlers in the Australian outback who saw no signs of settlement, such as churches, homes, or civic structure. They assumed the land was empty, despite the nomadic aboriginal culture living off the land. This photographic series uses Terra Nullis as a collective title positioned in relation to the city. However, the signs of industrialization, population expansion, and agrarian infrastructures/structures (often seen as meandering along horizons) clearly indicates that no land is Null.

Clark Thenhaus
www.endemicarchitecture.com