'Ben's Place' is part of a larger body of work documenting off-grid homesteads and communities. Since 2019, I have been documenting alternative communities who are often growing their own food and creating barter systems of exchange to produce creative forms of sustainability. Photographing Indigenous and settler communities throughout BC, this ongoing project has included dwellings from Lasqueti island, Saanich, Smithers and the Okanagan.

Tara Nicholson has travelled throughout the Arctic to document climatology sometimes with a blurred line between sci-fi and actual science. Her recent exhibitions have included the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Modern Fuel Artist-run Centre and the Oxygen Art Centre. Nicholson as attended international residencies including ‘Earthed’ at the Banff Centre, the Künstlerhaus Dortmund, and the Empire of Dirt. She teaches at the University of Victoria and holds degrees from Ryerson University (BFA), UBC (Dip) and Concordia University (MFA) and has received funding from the Canada Council, the BC Arts Council and the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council. In 2020, she embarked on her PhD at UBC Okanagan to produce exploratory landscape studies linking escalating changes within the Anthropocene.

If you would like to learn more about Nicholson’s work, visit her website or follow her on Instagram.