Where does the title “Things Fall Apart” come from?
SB: It comes from a poem by W. B. Yeats. Though Yeats writes about another time and circumstance (early 20th century Ireland), I find these three words a perfect lament for the natural decay, dissolution and coming apart of the world as we know it. This sentiment does not advocate another course, but acknowledges the fate of everything that has been put together. The act of creating these photographs is for me a meditation on impermanence and death, not in a morbid sense, but as the natural course of things. At the same time we humans are causing the climate to change at an unprecedented rate, in turn causing the severe climatic events that put our lives at risk. The work is also meant to draw attention to some of the results of our collective irresponsibility. These two possibly conflicting strands exist in this work simultaneously, for better or for worse.
