Old Hanford City Site and the Columbia River, Hanford Nuclear Reservation, near Richland, Washington 1986

This is a photograph by Emmet Gowin, whose work I really admire. I can only imagine the experience of flying in a plane with a camera to make this aerial view. There’s an incredible tension between the natural and the man-made. The wide river snakes its way through the landscape, carving its own path. Beside it, the rigid, geometric grid of the old Hanford City Site, imposed on the land. It’s like two different ways of seeing and ordering the world, side by side. There's a lot of anxiety in the image. I think Gowin might have felt that too. It is almost like he's asking: what is our relationship to nature when you consider the history of nuclear production? Artists like Emmet Gowin remind us that everything we make has an impact, and that we are responsible for the world we create. Even artists.