Witness

Kris Timken traveled approximately fifteen hundred miles through the seven counties that constitute the Southern Division of the District of Oregon to photograph the striking variety and beauty of the landscape.  Beginning with a reading of the diaries of Lewis and Clark, Timken planned four trips with particular locations in mind, modifying her itinerary in response to the conditions she encountered and the conversations she had along the way.  Timken scheduled her travels to occur over several seasons to capture the varied character of the land.  Witness is the distillation of her experience.  For her final composition, Timken selected five images, each from a different geographic location, from among the many images that she shot on color film with a pinhole camera, which she had modified from an old medium-format camera.  The five images merge into one another across a twenty-five-foot-wide panel.