TOO MUCH

This portfolio book is based on my experience sailing in the Arctic Circle onboard the tall ship Antigua. Experiencing the rugged wilderness of the Arctic on a sailing ship, similar to how explorers first experienced it centuries ago, was awe-inspiring. Visiting such an extreme location where wilderness reigns and humans are mere vulnerable intruders burgeoned in me a love of sailing and immersively exploring harsh environments. Six hundred miles from the North Pole, hiking in virgin snow, my shipmates and I collected a half ton of trash—nets, buoys, cutting boards, a laundry basket, and plastic water bottles that littered the shore. In this book, photographs display the glacial beauty of Svalbard, Norway. They are partly obscured by scenes of overconsumption and natural-resource exploitation. These scenes, painted onto translucent film, allow some of the underlying image through, but require the reader to physically pick up the layer and peel it back in order to see the landscape unblemished by our human activities. 

The portfolio boards were hand bound with Stardream and Canson papers before mounting the archival gicleé photographic print. Drafting-film pages contain the hand-painted scenes of human destruction and consumption of our planet’s resources, and are hinged with Tyvek. Some of the very same materials found on the shores of Svalbard are used in this book: plastics and artificial materials—manmade—that will resist degradation for centuries. They are ever present, even in art. Printed on the film is prose poetry taken from Todd’s travel-journal entries. They echo a love for the environment and the extreme and wild beauty of the High Arctic.