DE PROFUNDIS
(FROM THE DEPTHS)

♦︎☽☀︎♦︎☽☀︎♦︎☽☀︎♦︎

De Profundis explores what it means to belong into the world, the sacredness of life and our interconnection, especially in a place like the shelter where the space itself, the humans, and the animals must coexist, with the beauty and the tension that arise.

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What does it mean to belong in the world?

With this body of work, I wonder how we know that we are here. Is it possible, for example, to measure and capture life energy? Is the only proof we were here in the traces we leave behind?

I’ve always found kinship with shelter dogs. They have been betrayed, punished for sins they did not commit. They likely don’t understand their fate or their role in it. They are kept in cages, away from their life, while the world outside keeps going on. These dogs live in limbo, neither alive nor dead yet. A life suspended. The world is still right there, just out of reach. And in the United States alone, over 300,000 of these dogs are euthanized every year.

For this project I worked with the Fulton County shelter in Atlanta. The shelter was built in the 1970s, at a time when adoption was not a thing, and the place’s purpose was to collect all unwanted pets and kill them. This building was the end of the world for almost all of these animals. Today, most get a chance at a new life through adoption.

I visited the shelter in 2023, right before they moved out of the building and into a brand-new facility. The place was like a circle of hell. It was so overcrowded that each kennel counted 6, 7 dogs. These dogs were going insane: jumping, scratching the walls, screaming, fighting. If you met their eyes, they pleaded for a release, and there was no way to explain to them that you couldn’t do anything.

I returned once the building was empty, after the shelter moved out. I expected a place heavy with sorrow, anguish and death. Butit stood there, empty, quiet, eerily peaceful. Like nothing had happened here.

De profundis clamavi ad te Domine.
Domine, exaudi vocem meam.
Fiant aures tuæ intendentes in vocem deprecationis meæ.

Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.
Lord, hear my voice:
Let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.
(Psalm 130)

I spent 6h trying to revive and recapture what I had witnessed in these cages. The sadness, the distress, the anger of these dogs, bouncing off the walls. Using light and long exposures, I wanted to see what it meant to have my life energy trapped in this place. An energy contained, with nowhere to go but inward.

Like an archeologist, I touched the walls and searched for the traces, the secret language and codes the dogs left behind. Keys to understanding their experience. Ways to remember them.