To Build a Fire uses ideas of boundaries as entry points to interrogate our relationship with nature, specifically through designed spaces. Similar to Jack London’s protagonist from the same title, most of the constructed boundaries ignore reality to the point of absurdity. Places where they begin or end seem to defy reason, what they include and exclude aren’t that different, and how they are constructed are nonsensical. Their ubiquity makes them also slip into our subconscious, acting like a social contract that dictates our daily lives.
Once established, efforts required to maintain boundaries make clear the futility of such endeavors. Time is not on our side. Without sustained attention, nature will begin its alteration of constructed and manicured spaces, laying waste to our handiwork. In fact, everything done by human hands will succumb to nature at some point if simply because our boundaries mean nothing to the elements of nature.
Convincing ourselves that nature can be outsmarted or forgetting about the traveler who froze to death, provides only temporary relief. These are moments that remind us we can’t even outsmart ourselves and that control is a fool’s game.
BIO: Shannon Randol (b. 1979) in an American photographer who uses the landscape as a catalyst for his work. Shannon currently serves as Associate Professor of Photography at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, TN where he teaches introductory to advanced level photography courses while also curating the Baldwin Photographic Gallery.
