We are training each other in acts of communication we barely understand. We are, constitutively, companion species — Donna Haraway, The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness
Los Angeles’ last wetland, a nearly 600-acre site north of Los Angeles International Airport, is called Ballona. Through photography and film the project Inside Ballona Waachnga wanders the region, exploring how humans and other creatures see their surroundings and experience the passage of time. What tools, methods, and imaginative technologies help us understand the world—and how verdant are they in revealing other ways of seeing?
In the Ballona Wetlands, freshwater from stormwater runoffs mixes with salty ocean water. These marshy areas create unique zones making it one of the most plentiful ecosystems you'll find anywhere.
Before Los Angeles existed, what did the now-L.A. area look like? The Los Angeles Basin had rivers, marshes, and even lakes in some seasons, supporting a vast variety of plants and animals.
I started my journey with other-than-human life in Iceland almost 10 years ago. Shoot up to when I moved to Los Angeles, and came across the Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve, which happened to be the last coastal salt marsh in the city, right next to my Venice Beach home.
As I explored this urban arbor, I was drawn in by bird songs, fluttering blue dragonflies, and the smell of purple sage. I started filming, took photographs to capture this in flux environment, and digging deeper into why wetlands matter so much for our planet’s health.
Inside Ballona Waaachnga acknowledges ancestral Native land. The Tongva people called the Ballona Wetlands their ancestral land Waachnga or Pwinukipar, meaning "full of water.”
Thank you to Ballona Wetlands Conservancy, Friends of Ballona Wetlands, and the California Department of Fish & Wildlife
To learn more please visit ballonawaachnga.info
Inside Ballona/Waachnga, ongoing since 2022, Los Angeles, California
