Rachel Foster - Dark Sands and Saltgrass
This series of Polaroid emulsion lifts explores the resilience of a unique wildlife refuge in Metro Vancouver weathering a century of industrialisation. I am an artist, photographer and wildlife professional who was raised in the UK and currently based in Vancouver Canada. The UK’s troubled history of western capitalism and colonialism has contributed to the withering of its own wildlife populations and native ecosystems; as a white British settler in BC, I reflect on the implications of occupancy, the sensitive history between Canada and Britain, and how colonial and capitalist attitudes throughout the recent centuries have caused irreversible ecological and socio-economical impacts to Canadian landscapes.
I work as a field technician for non-profit and government bird research in western Canada. Over the last five years, I have worked as a bird bander for the Iona Island Bird Observatory (IIBO) in Iona Beach Regional Park, just north of Vancouver Airport. During this time I have become familiar with the unique flows of the area, located on the unceded land of the Musqueam on the Fraser River estuary, xʷəyeyət (Iona Island). Despite the relentless development and pollution, xʷəyeyət still nurtures freshwater wetlands, saltgrass meadows, and rare dune grass ecosystems. This series aims to portray the diverse mosaic of xʷəyeyət – freshwater wetland, estuarine meadow, forest, invasive plant encroachment – and the resilience of this sensitive ecosystem cocooned within industries that threaten to expand and further alter its structure.