doom is dark

Ariane Jaccarini

2021

There is a longstanding proclivity to analogize the swampscape with Hell. This is in part due to both sites’ inability to be resolutely and definitively identified. While the swamp exists as a tangible environmental phenomenon, it has historically evaded categorization due to its conflicting state of matter (solid/liquid); ambiguous ecology and deceptive appearance has historically rendered it a place be avoided. The swamp is recurrently cast in metaphor as an ideological wasteland, bereft of purpose or merit. Hell, conversely, while a theological and folkloric place, is where the souls of the damned are sent to suffer. In the Dismal Swamp Preservation Commission: doom is dark, the swamp is realised as an interior: the inherent sense of comfort or the familiar is belied by the difficulty to navigate the space (not unlike its real-life counterpart) and the unsettling amalgam of disjointed anchors ofimagery.

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