Juxtaposing the liminal quality of sunsets against the evergreen nature of landscapes.
Book Design Spring 2026
Overseen by Becca Leffell Koren Introduction
What Remains takes up a question posed by art critic Lucy Lippard in her book Lure of the Local that asks: “If place is defined by memory, but no one who remembers is left to bring these memories to the surface, does a place become noplace, or only a landscape?” To answer that question, the book pairs photography from Japanese landscape photographer Shikama Takeshi,writing by myself, and 10 sunset gradients printed on loose transparent film. Together, they put the fleeting nature of sunsets in conversation with the land and asks the viewer to cast their own light, creating their own memories in the process.
Process
The landscape book itself is actually quite simple—I wanted the landscape photography to live on its own much like the landscapes themselves, and to feel both weighted and majestic. The prose that I wrote, titled Carried Colors, describes the feeling of the piece: that the sunsets that we see are temporary, and that when we leave, we take these colors with us, while the land remains.
The cover of the book is a reminder of that very thesis, offering a small window into these landscapes, but when the book ends, the landscape remains as it always has. The book has ten unique sunset gradients inserted into a back panel of the book with instructions for the viewer to take these gradients and to lay them on the spreads, creating their own sunsets that only they see.