Visual Artist / Creative Director
Songs of Stone and Earth
Paradise Lost 004 - exhibition
Paradise Lost 004 - book
Paradise Lost 001-003
Xenon-129
Robbers
Visual Artist / Creative Director
Songs of Stone and Earth
Paradise Lost 004 - exhibition
Paradise Lost 004 - book
Paradise Lost 001-003
Xenon-129
Robbers
Songs of Stone and Earth is an exploration of the enduring connections between cultural heritage, architectural resilience, and modernity.Songs of Stone and Earth is an exploration of the enduring connections between cultural heritage, architectural resilience, and modernity.
Rooted in the landscapes of Morocco's High
Atlas Mountains, the work traces how the Amazigh people have inscribed themselves into the land, through earthen structures, oral tradition, and a relationship to place that persists across generations.
What is present here is often described as vernacular, a term historically used to distinguish local, community-based practices from what has been labeled as "modern" or "universal." This distinction is not neutral, it is rooted in colonial power structures that actively marginalized indigenous building traditions, associating them with poverty and backwardness while imposing Western styles as the standard of progress. Such categorization has positioned these expressions of culture as marginal, nostalgic, or "lesser," overlooking their sophistication, depth, and continued presence. The work is an observation of what was always there.
In the book, a single resonant verse from Amazigh oral tradition weaves through the narrative, questioning the assumption that heritage and modernity are oppositional. Instead, it highlights their coexistence, showing how cultural traditions endure and adapt in dialogue with the present. The work ultimately returns to the fundamental questions of identity, belonging, and the essence of home.
The installation expands on the themes of Paradise Lost, bringing together photography, print, ready-mades, and textile. At its center hangs the book's cover image of Maria, printed on fabric. Beneath it, buckets wrapped in aluminum foil and filled with flowers evoke the makeshift shrines found throughout Mexico, informal gestures of devotion constructed from what is at hand.
What appears local and familiar has a history. The imagery of saints and shrines, now so embedded in daily life, carries with it a history of imposition and cultural transformation, the point where the colonial becomes naturalized until it is indistinguishable from the everyday. The installation sits exactly in that space, where the sacred and the ordinary, the imposed and the absorbed, the intimate and the historical can no longer be separated.
In this way, the installation continues the conversation central to Paradise Lost: how to look at the everyday without overlooking its entanglement with broader histories of power, identity, and belonging.
Paradise Lost 004 examines the tension between the vernacular and the modern, questioning the assumption that tradition and progress must stand in opposition. Within colonial and Eurocentric frameworks, “modern” has long been associated with Western progress and sophistication, while “vernacular” has been used to describe cultural forms seen as local, peripheral, or underdeveloped. This binary is not neutral: it has historically reinforced hierarchies of power, where non-European traditions were cast as “low culture” and marked by racism and exclusion.
Through photography, the book seeks to challenge this constructed opposition by highlighting the overlooked details of everyday life. Objects, spaces, and gestures that may appear ordinary are shown as carriers of deeper cultural meaning, revealing how identity, belonging, and displacement shape our environments. In doing so, the work demonstrates that the vernacular is not static or nostalgic, but an active, living expression of culture that coexists with and redefines the modern.
The project is also a reflection on colonial legacies that continue to structure our daily lives. The recurring presence of Christian imagery throughout the book is one example: while today these images often blend seamlessly into the vernacular landscape, they also carry with them the history of colonial imposition. In this way, the book points to the complex entanglement of faith, culture, and power, showing how colonial structures persist within the most mundane details of everyday life.
At its core, Paradise Lost 004 is a search for home. For those who live between cultures, “home” is never singular—it is shaped by movement, hybridity, and histories of displacement. By documenting the mundane, the book uncovers these deeper cultural narratives and invites viewers to look closely at what might otherwise be overlooked, reconsidering how meaning, memory, and power reside in the everyday.
A photography research project in development, Paradise Lost follows Joshua Hoogeboom-Noya’s exploration of New Topologies—emerging spatial, cultural, and social structures—and their connection to the impossibility of belonging.
This research began in 2018 during The Future Residency in Yoro Town, Japan, and was first published in 2022.
The presence of the substance of Xenon-129 on Mars, a product of nuclear weapon development, leaves scientists speculating whether aliens had engaged in nuclear war on the planet.
Xenon-129 prompts us to reflect on how we interpret the truth in an era saturated with information and misinformation, encouraging a deeper examination of the narratives we choose to believe.
Published by Studio The Future.