These photographs address the complicated history of sea level rise in the Tidewater region of Virginia, documenting the disparities and connections between climate change and colonialism. 

 There are many historically significant sites in the United States that are rooted in colonialism. The Tidewater region or Tsenacommacah the name used by the indigenous people for their native homeland, is the site of many, including Jamestown, the site of the first full-time British settlement, and Port Comfort where the first enslaved Africans were brought to this country in 1619. Tsenacommacah was also the home to Powhatan and his daughter Pocahontas.

Climate change is rooted in the exploitation and degradation of the planet. Colonization, the plantation system, slavery, settler mythology and Manifest Destiny, all laid the groundwork for our modern world and the current catastrophic environmental crisis.

In the midst of flooding and coastal erosion, those of us who live in Tidewater keep living our lives all the time wondering if the region will eventually sink into the sea, leaving behind the ruins of a lost civilization that was unable to recognize its own destruction.