In September 2020, the Bobcat fire burned through more than 100,000 acres in and around the Angeles National Forest. It was there that Alia Chand took a series of photographs that comprise her show, “All That Comes After,” on display at the Gayle and Ed Roski Gallery.
Chand grew up in Dallas, but spent summers in the Rocky Mountains.
“I was interested in how the forest acts as a space that kind of doesn’t really have a lot of human intervention, and that really tied in for me,” Chand said.
Chand said that many of Los Angeles County’s native species had been removed or became extinct due to human interference, which has altered the forest due to the impacts made by the Bobcat Fire. Several wildfires have since ravaged the area, including the Bridge Fire, which burned over 56,000 acres.
Chand is a multidisciplinary artist and junior studying photography and communications. She said her love for the outdoors inspires her work, and she focuses on the natural world through black-and-white photography.
“I have always really paid a lot of attention to shadow detail and how that comes through in black and white,” Chand said. “When I was putting together my pieces for the exhibition … I wanted them to have a little bit more of a feeling of life and energy to them.”
The exhibit, held in the Graduate Fine Arts Building, features a collection of 17 photographs hung in black frames on the wall, depicting the Angeles National Forest as a “body in constant transition.”
“A lot of them are in black and white, so I think there’s probably an artistic intention behind that,” Yujin Lee, a senior studying design, said. “There’s some kind of contrast she is trying to make between those two specific pictures and the rest.”
Several of the photographs juxtapose life and death, featuring fallen, barren or burnt trees, while others showcase flowers, dramatic mountain ranges and vibrant flora.
Qiuya Chen, a senior also studying design, said she visited the exhibit a few times since its opening.
“In my Chinese culture, black and white means something is passing away,” Chen said, recognizing the contrast between life and death that photography fosters. “In photography and black and white of nature kind of resembles some of the deforestation as a generation; some kind of trying to remember or even mourn for nature.”
Chand reflected on the forest’s representation of life, death and renewal.
“Going to the forest over the last year or so has kind of been this escape, this way to get out of campus and Los Angeles and just be alone in nature where nothing else really matters that much,” she said. “That tied into these processes of life and death in the forest.”
“All That Comes After” runs through November 11 and is available on weekdays from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Gayle and Ed Roski Gallery in the Graduate Fine Arts Building.