Tommy Keith – To Hold This Mystery

To Hold This Mystery is an ongoing series of colour photographs of animals, plants, algae, snow and other elements of nature. What interests me is the idea that we are not separate from nature, but rather that we are just not fluent in its seemingly infinite languages. If we are ever to have a chance of living in harmony with the Earth, we need to fundamentally shift the way we interact and think about our surroundings. This project aims to depict our environment as a living entity, one that is just as alive as humans.

My interest in the mysteries of the natural world began, as is not uncommon, when I was a child. Between catching frogs and memorizing trails in the forest behind our house, I spent long hours outside exploring by myself. Some moments are ingrained in my memory forever: seeing the fisher – a carnivorous mammal which looks similar to a small wolverine – that presumably ate our cat Rainbow, clung to the trunk of a white pine as my Grandma and I walked around the house; being chased by a wild turkey on the trail that connected my house to Ben and Tomas’ house; holding my breath and opening my eyes as I swam underneath the shallow section of the Port Sydney dock. Looking back on these moments I find a common thread between them all. I was brushing up against a world about which I knew little. Like a baby learning to talk, I was learning how to communicate and interact with a world whose language I did not yet speak.

Tommy Keith (b. 1993) is a photographer from Huntsville, Ontario. He received a BFA from Concordia University and is an MFA candidate in Photography at Columbia College Chicago. He currently lives in Toronto and works as a Teaching Assistant online.