Forty-six 35mm black and white photographs, each 8 x 10 inches

The photo series 100 Seconds to Midnight (2021) depicts, in unassuming black and white photographs, pictures of homes that have underground bunkers. Much of the tract housing in the Los Angeles area built between the late 1940s to the early 1970s had an option to add a nuclear bomb shelter to its basic design. Many of these bunkers have been subsequently repurposed as storage or wine cellars. Contemporary home construction also incorporates subterranean space as potential shelter from a wide range of potential disasters. The inclusion of underground space is no longer a basic basement, but a luxury for wealthy buyers who want the option to sequester themselves from the world for a period of time.

I began this photo series in July 2020 when I saw a real estate listing for a patch of desert about two hours outside Los Angeles. The ad showed two images: a flat steel plate in the ground and a dark, empty underground room with cinder block walls. I drove out to see the property, bumping down dirt roads to find a patch of unspectacular scrubland with a large and heavy locked steel door in the sand. To me, this space became replete with narratives, dreams, and speculation. As a result, I decided to continue my journeys like a stubbornly analog Google Street View, taking straightforward, unassuming images of the straightforward, unassuming homes that concealed their mysterious spaces behind placid, sunny facades.

This project was first exhibited in the solo show “Maelstrom,” at Pitzer College Galleries, Claremont, CA, in 2021

Pitzer Exhibition

Maelstrom Film