Michael John Whelan
Video Installation
Film
Photography
Objects
Paper & Sound
Info
News
Echoes of evaporation
and submergence

1991
And they did live by watchfires
Nocturne
Untitled
Darkness had no need
These last breaths
The time of cruel wonders
was not yet over

In the black dark for good
Carapace
That we were to wait
Like force and matter
Lupus
20 Vertices, 30 Edges
and 160 Diagonals

Dune
Transit of Venus
Over the echoing gateway
Stars/Star
Shadowplay
Archway (diptych)
And they did live by watchfires
2020-ongoing
pigment prints on paper, various sizes
installed at Nocturnes, Grey Noise, Dubai (2020)
(1/8) Next




This project explores light pollution, specifically skyglow, as an eco-marker of humanity's unbridled global population growth and subsequent effects on the environment. Today over half the world's population live in cities. According to research from the UN, by 2050 2.5 billion more people will be living in cities. Focusing on this exponential anthropogenic growth, Whelan has been documenting urban densification using analogue large format photography. From an array of locations and elevations, he focuses on the abstract visual gradient caused by the artificial light refracting in the night sky. The light sources themselves are excluded from the image, focusing only on the effects. Abstraction becomes a tool for accessibility and contemplation.