by Thomas Jackson
Thomas Jackson was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and grew up in Providence, Rhode Island. After earning a B.A. in History from the College of Wooster, he spent much of his career in New York as an editor and book reviewer for magazines. It was his particular interest in photography books that led him to pick up a camera, first shooting Garry Winogrand-inspired street scenes, then landscapes, and finally the installation work he does today.
Thomas Jackson's work where he clicks stellar landscapes, assembles bright balloons, tutus, cheese balls, and other objects into swarming patterns in natural settings has opened up new possibilities of intervening and interacting with one's own frames in his series of pictures called 'Emergent Behaviours' www.thomasjacksonphotography.com/emergent-behavior.html
The installations featured in this series of photographs are inspired by self-organizing, "emergent" systems in nature such as termite mounds, swarming locusts, schooling fish and flocking birds. Thomas Jackson began working on “Emergent Behavior,” in 2011, he started with found objects. He collected fallen leaves in the Catskills and picked junk off the street, then moved on to cups and cheese balls, construction fences, glow necklaces, hula hoops, and balloons. He assembles these objects on outdoor frameworks, then photographs the installations. The resulting pictures show inanimate objects caught up in restless movement: some circle, some gather, some dip.
