Anna Rotty - Terra
As things change, we often look to find solace in nostalgia.
Terra
Anna Rotty
Around the beginning of the pandemic, I learned of the word "solastalgia", a term meant to describe the homesickness that one feels while still at home. This relatively new word was meant to capture the essence of emotions we feel when our homes and environment are changing around us, as the result of climate change. As things change, we often look to find solace in nostalgia.
While considering the slow, almost invisible, changes happening around us, I began constructing landscapes to escape into within my apartment. As the sun would shine its way across my living room each morning, I would use light and reflective materials, like an emergency blanket, to create imagined landscapes.
While making interpretations of mountains, sky, and water, I found both struggle and solace imagining the potential futures we could create, often thinking about the human relationship with the land and the complexities around the fragility and strength of the Earth.
Anna Rotty’s work contemplates vulnerability, distance and connection. Recent work explores nostalgia and empathy through different ways of seeing. By constructing images that mimic another, whether by accessing a memory, building an alternative landscape or rendering projections, Anna looks to highlight the intangible and emotional aspects of the world. She is currently pursuing an MFA in photography at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque and an emerging member at Strata Gallery Santa Fe.
