Sena Clara Creston

Artist Statement

Fortitude is a series of impromptu driftwood beach huts and social sculptures along the California Coast where the texture of the world comes together for potential fun, adventure, and beauty. I am a photographer and interactive installation artist that uses found repurposed detritus of the modern world. The erosion of driftwood from manipulated and natural sources possesses a sense of familiarity and security, offset by precarious construction of dilapidated materials to create a sense of unease; alluding to our contribution to environmental uncertainty. Fortitude is a portmanteau of Fort and Attitude, and a word describing the resilience required to seek and sustain shelter and safety on this entropic planet. The huts feel vulnerable. We know their failure is inevitable. Soon after the huts get built, occupied, and enjoyed; they inevitably fall from tempestuous weather, rising tides, poor construction, gravity, the poaching of one hut’s wood for another, and the coastal line eroding. Fortitude invites viewers to experience, empathize, and engage with their architecture; reflecting on what is considered natural in an increasingly mediated world. I returned to this beach every week to see new potential being constructed from the downfall in a place where beauty will always exist. Fortitude is a series of medium and large format analogue, and mirrorless and iPhone digital photographs taken over the past five years of beach huts on the California coast and displayed as silver gelatin and digital prints, lightboxes, sculptures, and installation.