STATEMENT

          I had to re-jog my memory, to ensure that this place was real. There was a church tucked away along a jumbled city street that captured my attention that I saw on a fleeting glance. Several years later, I reacquainted myself with the place that called itself “Saints Paradise II,” a pink, plastered building with dimmed doors and windows emblazoned with blue text on its front face. I was drawn in by the mystery of what a second version of paradise ordained by saints could be referring to. It felt like it could be the sequel of a sci-fi reality, only it would be a place of spirituality and divinity as much as it would be serene and potentially extraterrestrial. Outside of its locked doors, I was left to imagine and build a story for it, to create my own depictions of what this paradise could be.

          In order to do so, I ventured into our world with a camera at my side—I hiked along the scathed and quarried ridge, climbed to the top of mulch and land-filled mountains, navigated endless interior corridors, explored the deep forest and marshes, uncovered hidden caverns, embraced the quiet mist, followed the beacon of golden light, and traversed the less visible path. I discovered a place of mysticism and wonder, but also dissonance and desolation; a paradise where the seismically altered landscape is shone in varying, undying light, home to roaming entities swallowed by its gravity.