If you traverse its vast lakes, if you penetrate its deep pine forests, if you cross its wide-extending plains, nay if you wander by the way-side in the outskirts of its towns, you are alike struck with a sense of melancholy at finding yourself an isolated unit, as it were, in the midst of a space so large.

- ‘Three Years Residence in Canada from 1837 to 1839’, by T.R. Preston, 1840.

In The Midst is about the landscape of North America, specifically Canada. The series examines the peripheries of Toronto ’s cityscape through the city’s relationship with the land.

Many of these landscapes are underground storage reservoirs that city planners extended in order to meet the recreational demands of the immediate neighbourhood. The scale of these places highlights their social importance; not only do they provide a recreational arena but they also supply the essential element of water to the thousands of homes that fall within its boundaries. These spaces are thus directly interwoven into the very fabric of this city and yet our positioning in the photographs distances us from the very place we are connected to. The images thus become one of tension between our relationship to the cityscape and its relationship to the ground underfoot.

Not all of the photographs are of underground storage reservoirs. Some are landscapes that I felt mimicked the ambiguous relationship between my vista and the peripheral cityscape that sits tenuously upon the horizon. They are places that inspire a sense of melancholia but are at the same time concerned with the construction of a metropolis.

The landscapes are strangely silent, both terrifying and sublime. The snow seems to isolate every tree, every litterbin, and every goalpost, drawing our attentions to a meticulously arranged landscape. These elements represent the deep-rooted sense of growth of a Western culture creating its own sense of place, home and boundaries amidst a landscape and climate that is both welcoming and hostile.