Lucas Foglia
Artist Statement
My work focuses on the relationship between humans and nature, and the role played in it by technology. My first book, A Natural Order, focused on people who had left cities and suburbs to live off the grid in Appalachia. My second book, Frontcountry, focused on the interactions of the mining and cattle industries in the American West and how people use land that is famous for being wild. My third book, Human Nature, is a series of interconnected stories from around the world about people, nature, and the science of our relationship with wilderness.
I love the fact that a photograph can be used in so many different ways. I exhibit prints of my photographs in galleries, festivals, and museums. I publish photographs in books and magazines, and on social media. I also give photographs to local and national organizations to use for advocacy. All are different methods of storytelling and I believe there is art in each of those methods.
While at Headlands
While at Headlands I will be working on an installation of the photographs from my new book, Human Nature. I will also be beginning a new project in the Bay Area. I want to photograph people and places that demonstrate positive social and environmental models, examples that could be followed. I want to photograph the systems and the people behind them, the builders and the inventors, the possible everyday experience. I want to create a narrative between images that feels both futuristic, casual, and intimate. I never know, at the start of a series, what the outcome will be. I start with an idea, and then adapt the idea in response to the best photographs I make during years of work. I’ll give copies of the photographs to the communities I visit, and partner with news outlets to serially release stories. I will then strip each image of its news context to sequence a fictional story.
