Angela Faris Belt

There are more than 100 billion stars in our galaxy, and nearly 2 trillion galaxies in the universe. In relation, there are more than 50 trillion cells in each human body, and 100 trillion atoms in each human cell. At its core, all existence—we included—are made of stardust. When one considers both this interconnectedness and its incomprehensible sense of scale, we must also ask, “Where did all of this come from; why do we exist within it; and, in the scheme of all existence, what does one life matter?”

My newest exploration includes cyanotypes and both color and black and white digital photographs. The large-scale images combine scans of cremated ash remains of someone I love with open-source NASA and other astronomical images. Where one starts and the other ends is at once indeterminant and well-defined, and a viewer’s understanding of those bounds shifts with viewing distance.