Eirik Johnson: Leviathan Rising

An arresting photo collection that addresses oceanic commerce and environmental fragility in our uncertain era

The massive transoceanic barges that travel along the Inside Passage carrying goods to and from Alaskan waters often port in Duwamish, Washington, a deeply polluted river ecosystem that flows into the Salish Sea. The images in Leviathan Rising, taken by American photographer Eirik Johnson (born 1974), capture the patinated exteriors of these beastly structures and transform scale, perspective and light. The volume also contains a series of unique daguerreotype photograms, created in collaboration with photographer Daniel Carrillo, depicting glass floats used by early 20th-century Japanese fishermen to suspend their nets in the Pacific Ocean. Sylvia Wolf, director emerita of the Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, contributes an essay on a site-specific installation of this body of work, and Los Angeles–based musician and writer Sam Hockley-Smith addresses the sound component of the exhibited work, composed of aquatic field recordings that Johnson made beneath the surface of the Duwamish River.