body, land, spark photo series
2025
photographs printed on ultra premium enhanced matte paper
By Meg Stein, Photos and editing by Derrick Beasley, Creative Direction by Meg Stein and Derrick Beasley
Individual information below

body, land, spark reveals and strengthens the connections between the human body, our surrounding ecosystem and the subjective, multi-dimensional experience of aliveness within each of us. This series of fifteen photographs shows the artist interacting with seven of the ceramic wall sculptures that are on display in BEWILDERNESS— cradling one while inside the cove of a moss and lichen-covered rock; displaying one overhead with a mixture of pride and grace, the shadows on her face weaving her to the surrounding canopy of trees; crouching in tall golden grass while one rests on her back. Each of the sculptures represents a particular energetic experience, their titles reflecting the complexity of aliveness that any of us can feel in a moment— for example, the experience of feeling, “three times alive, summer day, a picnic, blanket, chorus frogs, trees, the smell of grass and citrus, all in my chest.”

As a series, the work paints a narrative arc from the beginning of something new—an idea, an arrival, a birth, a dawn, a love, a way of being—all the way through to integration. Starting with (cove), the story begins with calling in something unknown and the imagination of beginning to carry it. In (sun) what is new is still internal, but ready to come out, through the unfolding shown in the (pulse) trio. The artist titled the next grouping (grace) as homage to the navigation of the pride and humility that presenting something emergent to the world can elicit. Care is highlighted through visualizing cleansing and renewal alongside protection in (thorn). The next grouping, (sight), shows the artist journeying with this emergence before arriving in full integration with (bone), enjoying the spiritual roundness of experiencing something internally created as now externally grounded. The series is intentionally displayed in a circle to demonstrate the ongoing nature of this cycle.

This work was created in collaboration with multi-disciplinary artist, Derrick Beasley, who brought his skills and talent to the project’s creative direction, in addition to his photography and editing work. The collaboration draws on shared aspects of both artists’ work, including an inquiry into and desire to transform how we are in relationship to ourselves, each other and our surrounding environment.

–Meg Stein, 2025

Credit for photos: Derrick Beasley